"There are many relics from the ancient graves, gold bracelets and other ornaments, and old inscriptions. They are not always easy to read, but here is one to amuse the boys that Marion translated for me. I can't give the exact words, but it was the epitaph of a boy eleven and a half years old who had worked himself to death in a competition to recite Greek verses. After we had seen all we wished in the museums, Marion took me through a narrow way, the Via Tarpeia, and past the German Embassy and then through a garden, where we paid an old lady a fee, and then, but of course you have guessed it, we were standing on the famous Tarpeian Rock. We looked down from the rock into a rather poor and commonplace street, and I tried to imagine what it was like in the old, old times when this was the edge of Rome, and Tarpeia was killed there for betraying the city to the invaders.
"Without Marion I never could have found the Rock, and I don't believe Uncle Jim and Aunt Caroline would have taken the trouble to go there."
CHAPTER X
A QUEEN—AND OTHER SIGHTS
Irma was descending the Spanish Steps one morning on her way to the piazza when she heard Marion calling her. Turning her head, she saw him hastening toward her.
"What's your hurry?" he cried.
"I can't hurry going down these steps. I am on my way to return a book for Aunt Caroline. Then——"