"But I want to buy a lottery ticket before we leave Naples," said the girl. "Befana will fill your stockings with ashes if you do," said Rafael. "Everybody in Italy buys lottery tickets. Why should not I?" asked Edith perversely. "I do it not," said Rafael shortly. "That is because your wonderful king does not believe in it," she answered. "Is that not a good reason?" asked the boy. He looked at her with the same expression he wore in Venice, when she spoke slightingly of the superstitions of his country, and as she knew him better now, she laughed and agreed with him. "I did not really mean to do it," she said, and added, "Tell me more about Befana." "How I used to shake in my bed when I heard her bell ring!" he said with a laugh. "Did you really hear it ring?" asked Edith. He looked at her drolly, answering, "Of course I heard her bell. And often I heard the sheep talking to one another on Twelfth-night; or at least I thought I did." "Truly?" asked Edith in great delight. He nodded, smiling mischievously at her unexpected pleasure in hearing of the Italian superstitions. Befana is the Italian Lady Santa Claus. She is quite different from the fat, jolly man who drives his reindeer over the roofs at Christmas time. While Sir Santa is short and rosy, Befana is dark and tall; and while the kind old gentleman leaves something in every stocking, good and bad alike, this rather terrible old lady puts presents only in the good children's stockings, and drops bags of ashes into the others. Instead of happening at Christmas, as with us, the Italian festival is celebrated on the eve of Epiphany, the sixth of January. "Everyone is happy then," said Rafael, "and we shall forget Pompeii and the man-of-war which is always threatening it." So the children began at once to plan for the Twelfth-night festival. "Mother and I will make some peasant costumes for us to wear," Edith told Rafael, and added, "or you might wear a soldier's uniform and a cocked hat. The soldiers look so fine and march so well in Italy!" "Come children, it is time to go to bed if we are to take the early morning train to Rome," interrupted Mrs. Sprague, who had been studying a time-table; and the children separated, little dreaming that every plan would soon be changed. CHAPTER XVII THE MAGIC OF THE FOUNTAIN In the morning they wakened to find on every tongue the news of the terrible earthquake at Messina, and for many days it was Italy the desolate that filled their minds and kept their hands busy. People who saw it never forgot the dreadful misery of the country at that time. Edith and Rafael stood silent, as when they had walked the streets of the buried city of Pompeii, and watched the confusion of vessels coming and going to the South. Boxes and bundles of all sizes and shapes were piled high on the wharf, and supplies of food and clothing were being hurried to the suffering city.