They lunched at the Hotel Diomede before entering the precincts of the ruins.  Mr. Bradshaw had invariably a splendid appetite, and was by this time skilled in ordering the meals that suited him.  The few phrases of Italian which he had appropriated were given forth ore rotundo, with Anglo-saxon emphasis on the o’s, and accompanied with large gestures.  His mere appearance always sufficed to put landlords and waiters into their most urbane mood; they never failed to take him for one of the English nobility—­a belief confirmed by the handsomeness of his gratuities.  Mrs. Bradshaw was not, perhaps, the ideal lady of rank, but the fine self-satisfaction on her matronly visage, the good-natured disdain with which she allowed herself to be waited upon by foolish foreigners, her solid disregard of everything beyond the circle of her own party, were impressive enough, and exacted no little subservience.

Strong in the experience of two former visits, Mr. Bradshaw would have no guide to-day.  Murray in hand, he knew just what he wished to see again, and where to find it.

As Miriam was at Pompeii for the first time, he took her especially under his direction, and showed her the city much as he might have led her over his silk-mill in Manchester.  Unimbued with history and literature, he knew nothing of the scholar’s or the poet’s enthusiasm; his gratification lay in exercising his solid intelligence on a lot of strange and often grotesque facts.  Here men had lived two thousand years ago.  There was no mistake about it; you saw the deep ruts of their wheels along the rugged street; nay, you saw the wearing of their very feet on the comically narrow pavements.  And their life had been as different as possible from that of men in Manchester.  Everything excited him to merriment.

“Now, this is the house of old Pansa—­no doubt an ancestor of friend Sancho”—­with a twinkle in his eye.  “We’ll go over this carefully, Mrs. Baske; it’s one of the largest and completest in Pompeii.  Here we are in what they called the atrium.”

Cecily spoke seldom.  Of course, she would have preferred to be alone here with Miriam; best of all—­or nearly so—­if they could have made the same party as at Baiae.  At times she lingered a little behind the others, and seemed deep in contemplation of some object; or she stood to watch the lizards darting about the sunny old walls.  When all were enjoying the view from the top of Jupiter’s Temple, she gazed long towards the Sorrento promontory, the height of St. Angelo.

“Amalfi is over on the far side,” she said to Miriam.  “They are both working there now.”

Miriam replied nothing.

When they were in the Street of Tombs, Cecily again paused, by the sepulchre of the Priestess Mamia, whence there is a clear prospect across the bay towards the mountains.  Turning back again, she heard a voice that made her tremble with delighted surprise.  A wall concealed the speaker from her; she took a few quick steps, and saw Reuben Elgar shaking hands with the Bradshaws.  He looked at her, and came forward.  She could not say any thing, and was painfully conscious of the blood that rushed to her face; never yet had she known this stress of heart-beats that made suffering of joy, and the misery of being unable to command herself under observant eyes.