WHITEWASH
main body consisted of wealthy Breton peasants, dressed in all the gorgeousness of their feast-day clothes, and obviously uncomfortable. Here and there the inevitable, fat, greasy, commercial traveller serenely bulked, and the equally fat and oily bourgeoise-women shopkeepers of Lorient, and the other adjoining commercial cities, wielded ready knives. A few elegant but soberly dressed families attested that the aristocracy of France is by no means devoid of the faith that animated its distant forbears. An eminent journalist from Paris took notes obviously from his position by the fireplace, a well-known painter, accompanied by his equally well-known model, sat in the corner. A lonesome looking English boy, who was "doing" Brittany on his wheel, yawned by the window, and a party of very old gentlemen, who seemed to have no particular reason for attending the festival, unless, as Victoria suggested, they hoped for a Faust-like renewal of youth, completed the company.
"I don't see my Englishman," Miss Bently observed.
"Evidently his headache has come on again,
