"How tiny the people look 'way down there! And how high the great dome still is above us!" exclaimed May.
"It is more than two hundred feet from this gallery to the top of the dome," said her father. "Shall we climb up there?"
He carried his little girls by turns
"Yes, indeed!" said Molly, who had courage for anything.
Their father did not want the little legs to grow too tired with the long climb, so he carried his two little Sunbonnet Babies by turns up the last part of the steep, winding stairs, until they stood on a small open gallery above the great dome.
The whole city of Rome lay spread out before them like a great map. They could see the new city with its fine buildings, and the older city with its narrow streets and crowded houses, and the still older, dead city, which had lain buried many centuries and now looked very much like old Pompeii.
The whole city of Rome lay spread out before them
There was the river Tiber with its muddy water flowing lazily along between the crowded houses. And not far away was the Tomb of Hadrian and the handsome Bridge of the Holy Angels. Their father pointed out parts of the ancient stone wall which once surrounded the whole of old Rome, and St. Paul's Gate, through which Maria said they must drive in going to visit her father's farm.