rooms opening off it--bedrooms, dining rooms, sitting rooms. Beautiful
hangings instead of doors used to shut these rooms in. The atrium had an
opening in the roof where the sun shone in and softly lighted the big
room. Here the master used to receive his guests. In the house of
Vettius the two money chests were found in the atrium. In this same room
in the house of "Welcome," there was found on the floor a little bronze
statue, a dancing faun, one of the gay friends of Dionysus. It is a tiny
thing only two feet high, but so pretty that the excavators named the
house after it--The House of the Faun. Evidently the old owner loved
beautiful things and had money to buy them. Even the floors of some of
his rooms are made in mosaic pictures. There are doves at play, and
ducks and fish and shells all laid under your feet in bright bits of
colored marble. And beyond the pleasant court with its porches and
garden is a large sitting room. In the floor of this the excavators
found the most wonderful mosaic picture of all, a picture of a battle,
with waving spears and prancing horses and fallen men. Two kings are
facing each other to fight--Darius, king of Persia, standing in his
chariot, and Alexander, king of Greece, riding his war horse. The bits
of stone are so small and of such perfect color that the mosaic looks
like a beautiful painting. Imagine how the excavators' hearts leaped
when the spades took the gray ashes off this bright picture. It was too
precious a thing to leave here in the rain and wind. So the excavators
carefully took it up and put it into the museum of Naples where there
are other valuable things from Pompeii.

There are many other houses almost as pleasant and beautiful as this
House of the Faun. Every one has its atrium and its sunny court and its
fountains and statues and its painted walls. But Pompeii was a city of
business, too, and had many workshops. There is a dye shop where the
excavators found large lead pots and glass bottles still full of dye.