picture galleries.

Rosaries, bought from old women on the church steps, and later blessed
by the Pope, hung over the mirrors. In their work-baskets Edith and
her mother always had a bit of sewing to catch up at odd moments, and
there were books, maps and papers everywhere.

Rafael fitted into this cozy atmosphere with wonderful ease. He never
returned from a walk without a bouquet of flowers for the vases on the
tables, and he fell into a way of carrying a light camp-stool in their
excursions through the picture-galleries, so that Mrs. Sprague could
sit down when she was tired.

But this morning Mrs. Sprague was to visit some friends who were
spending the winter in Rome, and Edith and Rafael were going alone
with Professor Gates to the Colosseum.

"There is nothing new under the sun," said Rafael, as they stepped out
of the hotel elevator. "I have just been reading that there were
elevators in the Colosseum nearly two thousand years ago."

"They couldn't have been much like this fine one," said Edith. "What
were they for?" she asked, taking out her note-book.

"They were used to lift the fierce wild animals out of the underground
pits where they were kept until it was time for them to fight in the
arena," Rafael told her, and added, "You haven't much more room in
that note-book."

"The only way I can remember all you tell me is by making a note of
it," Edith replied with a laugh, and turned to greet the guide, who
had a carriage waiting for them.

There were many other tourists' carriages standing outside the great
ruin of the Colosseum, but as the professor led the two children under
the arches and into the arena they were hardly conscious of these
other sight-seers, so vast is this king of buildings.

"The Colosseum was an enormous out-door theatre which seated over
eighty-seven thousand people, and there was standing room for many
more," the guide told them.

As Edith climbed up to sit on one of the stone seats, Rafael said,
"Think of all the old Romans who sat on these same stones, and who
looked down into that arena at the terrible battles between men and
beasts."

[Illustration: THE COLOSSEUM AT ROME.
This enormous out-door theatre seated eighty-seven thousand people.]

"Yes," added Professor Gates, "for four hundred years the Roman people
came here on holidays, and sometimes they had as many as one hundred
and twenty-five holidays in one year. They came to be amused and
entertained with games, co