But I am glad to hear that you agree with me," and she looked as if she did not understand momma's acquiescent smile.
We went our several ways to see the baths, and the Comic Theatre, the bakehouse and the gymnasium; and I had a little walk by myself in the Street of Abundance, where the little empty houses waited patiently on either side for those to return who had gone out, and the sun lay full on their floors of dusty mosaic, and their gardens where nothing grew.
It seemed to me, as it seems to everybody, that Pompeii was not dead, but asleep, and her tints were so clear and gay that her dreams might be those of a ballet-girl.

A solitary yellow dog chased a lizard in the sun, and the pebbles he knocked about made an absurdly disturbing noise.
Beyond the vague tinted roofless walls that stretched over the pleasant little peninsula, the blue sea rippled tenderly, remembering much delight, and the place seemed to smile in its sleep.

It was easy to understand why Cicero chose to have his villa in the midst of such light-heartedness, and why the gods, perhaps, decided that they had lent too much laughter to Pompeii.

I made free of the hospitality of Cornelius Rufus and sat for a while in his _exedra_, where he himself, in marble on a little pillar in the middle of the room, made me as welcome as if I had been a client or a neighbour.

We considered each other across the centuries, making mutual allowances, and spent the most sociable half-hour.