fingers to her lips, there to cull (the ancient custom) the kiss that she flung to the young Pompeian concealed down yonder in the corner of the wall. Thus re-peopled, the old-time street, narrow as it is, was gayer than our own thoroughfares; and the brightly-painted houses, the variegated walls, the monuments, and the fountains, gave vivid animation to a picture too dazzling for our gaze. [Illustration: Closed House with a Balcony, recently discovered.] These fountains, which were very simple, consisted of large square basins formed of five stone slabs, one for the bottom and four for the sides, fastened together with iron braces. The water fell into them from fonts more or less ornamental and usually representing the muzzle of some animal--lions' heads, masks, an eagle holding a hare in his beak, with the stream flowing into a receptacle from the hare's mouth. One of these fountains is surrounded with an iron railing to prevent passers-by from falling into it. Another is flanked by a capacious vaulted reservoir (_castellum_) and closed with a door. Those who have seen Rome know how important the ancients considered the water that they brought from a distance by means of the enormous aqueducts, the ruins of which still mark all the old territories of the empire. Water, abundant and limpid, ran everywhere, and was never deficient in the Roman cities. Still it has not been discovered how the supply was obtained for Pompeii, destitute of springs as that city was, and, at the same time, elevated above the river, and receiving nothing in its cisterns but the rain-water so scantily shed beneath the relentless serenity of that southern sky. The numberless conduits found, of lead, masonry, and earthenware, and above all, the spouting fountains that leaped and sparkled in the courtyards of the wealthy houses, have led us to suppose the existence of an aqueduct, no longer visible, that supplied all this part of Campania with water.