mede."

Removing his cigar, he assisted the young lady to her feet and led her
to a sofa at the other end of the room, where, as they turned over the
photographs together, I heard him ask her if she objected to tobacco.

"You may go," said momma to the interpreter, "and explain the scenes.
Mr. Wick will enjoy them much more if he understands them." The freedom
from conventional restraint which characterises American society very
seldom extends to married gentlemen.

We had to wait twenty minutes for the other party, on account of their
British objection to anybody's dust. Even Mr. Mafferton looked quelled
when they arrived, and Isabel quite abject, while Mrs. Portheris wore
that air of justification which no circumstance could impair, which was
particularly her own. She would not sit down. "It gives these people a
claim on you," she said. "I did not come here to run up an hotel bill,
but to see Pompeii. Pompeii I demand to see." The players on the flute
and mandolin looked at Mrs. Portheris consideringly and then strolled
away, and the guide, with a sorrowful glance at the landlady, put on his
hat. "I can explain you everything," he said with an inflection that
placed the responsibility for remaining in ignorance upon our own heads,
but Mrs. Portheris waved him away with her fan. "No," she said. "I beg
that this man shall not be allowed to inflict himself upon our party.
I particularly desire to form my own impression of the historic city,
that city that did so much for the reputation of Sir Henry Bulwer
Lytton. Besides, these people mount up ridiculously, and with servants
at home on half wages, and Consols in the state they are, one is really
compelled to economise."

[Illustration: "I'm not a crowned head!"]

It was difficult to protest against Mrs. Portheris's regulations, and
impossible to contravene them, so I have nothing to report of that guide
but his card, which bore the name "Antonio Plicco," and his memory,
which is a blank.

There was an ascent, and Mrs. Portheris mounted it proudly. I pointed
out to poppa half-way up that his esteemed relative hadn't turned a
hair, but he was inclined to be incredulous; said you couldn't tell what
was going on in the Department of the Interior. The Senator often uses a
political reference to carry him over a delicate allusion. Flowering
shrubs and bushes lined the path we climbed, silent in the sunshine,
dustily decorative, and at the top the turning of a key let us