"Do you think so?" said Mrs. Gray.
"Why, you see I can engage a carriage to take us there myself," said Rollo. "I shall say 'Pompeii!' to the coachman, and point that way. And when we get to Pompeii, we shall find uncle George there, and then we shall get along well enough."
"True," said Mrs. Gray. "But then," she added, after thinking a moment, "perhaps we might miss Mr. George, after all. I don't know how large a place it is. If it is a large place, we might miss him in some of the streets."
Here Rosie opened a guide book which lay upon the table, and turned to a map of Pompeii which she recollected to have seen there. Her hope was to find that there were not many streets, and thus to show that there would not be much danger of missing Mr. George. She found, however, that the plan of the town looked quite complicated. There was a long street, called the Street of the Tombs, leading into it; and then within the walls there were a great many other streets, crossing each other, and running in all directions. So she shut the book, and did not say a word, thinking that the sight of the plan would impede, rather than promote, the acceptance of Rollo's proposal.
"I don't think there are a great many streets," said Rollo. "There were none at all at Herculaneum."
"Ah, but Herculaneum is a very different thing," said Mrs. Gray. "Herculaneum was buried up very deep with solid lava, and only a very small portion of it has been explored, and that you go down into as you would into a cellar or a mine. Pompeii was but just covered, and that only with sand and ashes; and the sand and ashes have all been dug out and carted off from a large part of the city, so as to bring the whole out in the open day."
"Then it will be a great deal pleasanter place to visit," said Rosie.
"Yes," said Mrs. Gray; "and I don't think that there will be much danger in our going by ourselves. If we don't find Mr. George, we can walk about a while, and then come back in the carriage again."
"We might go by the railroad if we chose," said Rollo. "There is a railroad that runs along the coast, and passes very near Pompeii."
"I think we had better take a carriage," said Mrs. Gray, "because a carriage will take us and leave us wherever we wish. There will be more changes if we go by the railroad, and we should need to speak more."