"Let us go to a hotel where we can see the fire at night, if it comes out of the volcano," said Edith; and they took rooms from which they could watch every mood of Vesuvius. Before they had been in the city three days Edith decided that she liked it better than she did Rome. "The people there looked so serious," she said, "while here they are very merry and sociable." Mrs. Sprague laughed. "They are certainly sociable enough," she said. "Yesterday I heard a woman read a letter aloud from an upper window to her friend on the sidewalk below." Edith laughed in her turn. "Was the window in the same house where we saw the rooster and chickens in the upper balcony?" she asked. [Illustration: "IT IS A FUNNY SIGHT TO SEE THE BOYS OF NAPLES EATING MACARONI" ] Rafael felt a touch of sadness at hearing their light talk. "The poor people!" he said. "When they live upstairs there is no other way but for them to keep their animals up there with them." "Many of them seem to live in the basements of the rich," observed the girl. To Rafael, the sight of such great poverty was no new thing, but Edith spoke of it constantly, and wrote of it to her father in America. "There seem to be nothing but happiness and laziness here among these poor people," the letter said. "They live and eat upon the sidewalk, and it is a funny sight to see the boys swallowing macaroni. "Many of the rooms in which the people sleep seem to be spaces left in the foundation of a castle, with no windows or doors in the openings. Often the castles seem to be ruined hills; and they have great holes in their barren sides, like caverns in the sides of cliffs; and we see barred doorways instead of windows, with dungeons beyond. "Then suddenly the hills blossom out into ramparts and parapets, so that it is impossible to distinguish between hills and castles; and to puzzle us still more, long flights of steps lead up between hilly castles and castled hills. "Occasionally we see a group of basket-makers, or tailors, or shoemakers on the sidewalks among the family groups of fathers, mothers and children. A little beyond such a group we saw yesterday a herd of goats resting comfortably in the shade, also on the sidewalk. "Early in the morning these goats are driven through the streets. They stop in front of a doorway, a woman runs out with a cup, the man milks her cup full and then drives on to the next doorway. Sometimes, if the woman lives on an upper floor of the house, one of the goats is driven up the stairs, to be milked at her very door. "We see rich people, also, driving in their splendid carriages on their most beautiful boulevard, overlooking the blue bay; and in contrast to them and their spirited horses, a contadino will come bringing a load of produce to market from the country, driving a white cow harnessed between a full-grown horse and a tiny mule."