e it any better for those who are now before us," and
momma used her handkerchief threateningly, though it was only in
connection with her nose.

"Well now, Augusta, I hate to destroy an illusion like that, because
they're not to be bought with money, but since you're determined to work
yourself up over these unfortunates, I've got to expose them to you.
They're not the genuine remains you take them for. They're mere
worthless imitations."

"Alexander," said momma suspiciously, "you never hesitate to tamper with
the truth if you think it will make me any more comfortable. I don't
believe you."

"All right," returned the Senator; "when we get home you ask Bramley. It
was Bramley that put me on to it. Whenever one of those Pompeii fellows
dropped, the ashes kind of caked over him, and in the course of time
there was a hole where he had been. See? And what you're looking at is
just a collection of those holes filled up with composition and then dug
out. Mere holes!"

"The illusion is dreadfully perfect," sighed momma. "Fancy dying like a
baked potato in hot ashes! Somehow, Alexander, I don't seem able to get
over it," and momma gazed with distressed fascination at the grim form
of the negro porter.

"We've got no proper grounds for coming to that conclusion either,"
replied poppa firmly. "Just as likely they were suffocated by the gas
that came up out of the ground."

"Oh, if I could think that!" momma exclaimed with relief. "But if I find
you've been deceiving me, Alexander, I'll never forgive you. It's _too_
solemn!"

"You ask Bramley," I heard the Senator reply. "And now come and tell me
if this loaf of bread somebody baked eighteen hundred and twenty
something years ago isn't exactly the same shape as the Naples bakers
are selling right now."

"Daughter," said momma as she went, "I hope you are taking copious
notes. This is the wonder of wonders that we behold to-day." I said I
was, and I wandered over to where Mrs. Portheris examined with Mr.
Mafferton an egg that was laid on the last day of Pompeii. Mrs.
Portheris was asking Mr. Mafferton, in her most impressive manner, if it
was not too wonderful to have positive proof that fowls laid eggs then
just as they do now; and I made a note of that too. Dicky and Isabel
bemoaned the fate of the immortal dog who still bites his flank in the
pain extinguished so long ago. I hardly liked to disturb them, but I
heard Dicky say as I passed that he didn't mind much abo