Fireplaces, or any means of artificial heating were unknown to the villa. They had waited patiently for the Southern sun to come and do his duty, but he didn’t; and a day came when Jane took to bed as the only hope of warmth, when even Domenica sneezed and said it was “molto freddo,” and then Peripatetica sallied forth determined to find some warmth nearer than 86Ætna. “Vesuvius” was the result of her quest. Not much was he to look at outwardly. Small was his round black form; oh, pitifully small he seemed at first view to those whose only hope he was. A mere rusty tin lantern on three little feet, he looked—but when his warm heart began to glow and to send delicious hot rays percolating through the holes of his sides and pointed lid, the charms of his fiery nature won respect at once. He made his small presence felt incredibly, from stone floor to high ceiling. Shawls and coats could be shed, feet lowered and at once frozen spines relaxed into long-forgotten comfort. His breath was not pleasant to be sure, his charcoal fumes troubled at first, but when a Sicilian oracle had recommended the laying of sliced lemons on his head, all fumes were absorbed, he breathed only refreshing incense and became altogether a joy. Every day, except on rainy ones, when his company was called for earlier, he made his appearance at six of the evening—and how eagerly the sight of Maria bearing him in used to be waited for! Then with feet toasting and backs relaxing in delightful warmth, Peripatetica and Jane sat over his little glowing holes with quite the thrill and comfort of a real hearthstone. Ardent fire worshippers they found themselves becoming in this supposedly Southern land. If Persephone had ever been as cold as they, they doubted if that enlèvement to Pluto’s warm, furnace-heated realm could have been so distasteful after all! Paddling out in the rain to hotels for meals was at first a drawback to life in the Villa Schuler. To sit with damp ankles through the endless procession of 87table d’hôte meals, and afterwards have the odoriferous bespatterings of the Scesa Morgana as dessert, was not an enjoyable feature of local colour. Frau Schuler was implored to feed her lodgers.