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Vandy and I walked to-day through the principal street of Tokio from end to end, a distance of three miles. It is a fine, broad avenue, crowded with people and vehicles drawn or pushed by men. There is also a line of small one-horse wagons running as omnibuses on the street novel feature, unknown anywhere else in the Empire.

But my mother remembers well that when a member of the congregation was about to start from Dunfermline to London, a rare event in those days, though not so very long ago, that his safety was always prayed for in church. I mentioned this to Vandy when he was deploring the ignorance and, as he thought, the impiety of the Sicilians.

An enterprising sailboat captain came alongside and offered to take us across the bay to the town in time to catch the only train leaving for Cairo for twenty-four hours. It was two long hours' sail, but the breeze was strong, and Vandy and I resolved to try it, bargaining with the captain, however, upon the basis of no train no pay.

Years ago, Vandy, Harry, and I, standing in the very bottom of the crater of Mount Vesuvius, where we had roasted eggs and drank to the success of our next trip, resolved that some day, instead of turning back as we had then to do, we would make a tour round the Ball.

It is well never to be without something to look forward to, and speculate upon; and by a happy chance Vandy and I have hit upon our next excursion, when we shall have earned another vacation by useful work. The very thought of it already brings us pleasure. And so, all hail, sunny Italia! What a picture this Bay of Naples is!

They leave any articles you may wish to decide upon, and the result is that one's rooms become perfect bazaars. The most unpleasant feature connected with purchasing is that everything is a matter of bargain. A price is named, and you are expected to make an offer. Vandy is a great success at this game, and seems to enjoy it. I am strictly prohibited from interfering, and so escape all trouble.

And as the lucky gamester gobbled his prizes, I imagined every one around involuntarily went through the motion of smacking his lips, as if he shared in the inward satisfaction of his lucky neighbor. Vandy almost overwhelmed one of these people by handing him a cash to try his fortune; but he thinks his man was too hungry to risk the dice, and took the sure thing.

The captain told me to-night that in all his voyages at this season he had never had one so fine as this. Of course he hadn't. Just our luck, you see. He never had one who enjoyed a trip more that he is free to confess. I fairly revel in the sea, and pity poor Vandy, who is never quite up to the mark on shipboard.

Roulette a little too high for you? "Well, my dear, I half agree with you. I think things were a little too stiff this afternoon for such youngsters; but Vandy is such a liberal fellow he couldn't do enough, nor tell when to stop, actually lugged up half a dozen bags of new silver and dealt it to the kids in handfuls. Harm? Why, he didn't see any, I dare say.

"Oh! don't think, please don't think of seeing the Taj until the very last, because, if you do, every thing else will seem so coarse," has been in substance the exclamation of every friend. But now we are through with all else, and we start, two o'clock P.M., February 14th, 1879. Vandy has just come to announce that our carriage is ready. Good-bye! Am I to be disappointed? Of course I am.