nted her from coming nearer. So I arose and went a little higher
up, when she at once crossed over, I thought, with a grateful smile. A
little while afterward she called to me, and asked if I would buy some
of her curiosities.

There was evidently no sordid motive in this; for when I came near, she
made no allusion to a bargain, but said I had chosen a place where there
was not sufficient shade. I asked her a few questions about the lava,
but got only vague answers. What conversation passed was a random kind
of talk about the difference of Italy and foreign countries. It was
evident that in the girl's eyes "Napoli"--which she pronounced with
magnificent emphasis--was the only place in the world worth admiring.
She had seen no other. The people, however, were bad--very bad. I
thought, upon this observation, that something like a story was coming;
but the throat and face of the girl only darkened with a rush of blood,
and she grew utterly silent. Suddenly she arranged her lava hastily in
her basket, started up, leaving a piece which I had been holding in my
hand, and had not paid for, and ran away down the street. I naturally
ran after her to pay for what I had bought; but she turned round with
flushed cheek and flashing eyes; and while I was indulging in the hope
of being able to explain my intentions, I felt a blow on my breast from
a stone lanched with no weak hand; and before I had time to recover from
my surprise, the girl had disappeared.

A curious termination to an interview which I had begun to persuade
myself had something of a romantic character! I rubbed my thorax, tried
to laugh at the little slut's vivacity, but could not get rid of the
uneasy annoyance peculiar to misunderstood people. Perhaps I had been
taken for a robber--perhaps something I had said in my broken Italian
had been thought insulting. I grew quite morose; thought of nothing else
all the afternoon; was set down as an ill-tempered fellow at dinner; and
on retiring to bed, could not help perpetually stating this
question--"Why should that pretty girl, toward whom my heart had
expanded, have left me in so abrupt a manner; and on my endeavoring to
restore her property, have made a target of me?" All night, as I slept,
I felt as if a hot coal were lying on my breast; and the place, indeed,
_was_ black and blue in the morning.

An excursion had been proposed to Vesuvius, and we started at three in
the afternoon--myself, four Americans, with Mr. J