WHITEWASH
her. Although her training had been in the field of applied art, she was slowly but certainly turning toward the alluring fields of literature, her short experience with newspaper work having bred ambitions. Now, unconsciously, she groped for words into which to translate the pictures and the emotions of the hour, and went about with sentences speaking themselves in her head—so good sometimes that she longed to jot them down, yet never quite dared because of a curious self-consciousness that made her hate to explain her occupation to her companions. "Hysteria, the most instantly contagious of diseases," she caught herself murmuring, as, supper finished, they again sought the square and its picturesque gatherings. "I wonder, if it is possible for any one in his senses to remain unmoved by such an immense and intensely human cry of faith—the faith of the children, and catered to as to children." What marvellous charm was in the lights, the incense, the fountain of healing, the fairy-tale statue discovered, though buried, because of the great radiance that shone over the spot! What mattered it that antiquarians
