only a few were admitted, from which we might view the procession and
the Blessing of the Sick. But we were disappointed; and, after a certain
amount of scheming, we managed to get a position at the back of the
crowd on the top of the church steps. I was able to climb up a few
inches above the others, and secured a very tolerable view of the whole
scene.

The crowd was beyond describing. Here about us was a vast concourse of
men; and as far as the eye could reach down the huge oval, and far away
beyond the crowned statue, and on either side back to the Bureau on the
left, and on the slopes on the right, stretched an inconceivable
pavement of heads. Above us, too, on every terrace and step, back to the
doors of the great basilica, we knew very well, was one seething,
singing mob. A great space was kept open on the level ground beneath
us--I should say one hundred by two hundred yards in area--and the
inside fringe of this was composed of the sick, in litters, in chairs,
standing, sitting, lying and kneeling. It was at the farther end that
the procession would enter.

After perhaps half an hour's waiting, during which one incessant gust of
singing rolled this way and that through the crowd, the leaders of the
procession appeared far away--little white or black figures, small as
dolls--and the singing became general. But as the endless files rolled
out, the singing ceased, and a moment later a priest, standing solitary
in the great space began to pray aloud in a voice like a silver trumpet.

I have never heard such passion in my life. I began to watch presently,
almost mechanically, the little group beneath the _ombrellino_, in white
and gold, and the movements of the monstrance blessing the sick; but
again and again my eyes wandered back to the little figure in the midst,