recommendations in English and a very good fee to the padrone, who of course didn't understand a word of what he was saying, but seemed to divine in some mysterious way. He looked smilingly at me, told me to cheer up ("Coraggio" is their way of saying it) and told the American, in Italian, that he would take good care of me. He was very sorry to go and leave me, said he had never done anything he liked so little. As soon as the excitement of their departure was over the two men came back. The "vigneron" went back to his bed, from where he conversed with us occasionally, and the other one settled down in his chair, and seemed half asleep. It wasn't very long before my party came back. The men heard them before I did, and told me they were arriving. I must say I was glad to see them. They had had a splendid time, seen everything beautifully, gone quite up to the stream of red-hot lava, put umbrellas and canes into it (the ends were quite black and burnt)--they were not in the least nervous, and jibed well at me. William said he had rather an uncomfortable feeling at first when he saw me and my very small attendant depart, but he forgot it in the excitement and novelty of their excursion. He thanked the padrone for taking such good care of me, proposed a hot drink (very bad it was) all round, and we took quite a friendly leave of the two gentlemen. I promised to try and find the brother shoemaker. They had crossed my American friends on the way back--William said they were just starting down when they saw another party appearing and he heard a gentleman say, "I think this must be Mr. King." He was very much surprised to hear his name, but rode up to the speaker, to see who he was, and then the gentleman told him of his amazement at meeting his sister in that wretched little shanty and how miserable he had felt at leaving me there alone, with two Neapolitan brigands, but that I had assured him I was quite safe and not at all afraid of the two black giants--but he begged William to hurry on, as it was not really the place to leave a girl--even an American who would know how to take care of herself. We made our journey down quite easily. It was still pitch dark, except when the fire of the mountain lighted up everything, but there was neither rain nor wind, the air was soft, and the little outlying villages looked quite quiet and peaceable, as if no great mountain was throwing up masses of ashes and stones just over their heads, which might after all destroy them entirely. There must always be a beginning, and I suppose in the old days of Pompeii and Herculaneum the beginning was just what we have seen--first columns of smoke, then the lava stream and showers of red-hot stones, and none of the people frightened at first. We found Mother and Anne waiting for us with supper. They had been a little anxious, particularly as the weather was so bad, and they evidently had had more of a tempest than we had.