The morning was soft and warm, with a sun shining amiably on the
rather commonplace old town. I had risen betimes that I might go
and get a Spanish melon for my breakfast, but at eight o'clock I
found the fruiterer's locked and barred against me. I lingered
and hungered for the melons which I saw in his window, and then I
tried other fruiterers, but none of them was stirring yet. I
reflected how different it would have been in our own Boston; and
if it had not been for the market people coming into the square
and beginning to dress their stalls with vegetables, and fish,
and native fruits, such as hard pears and knotty apples, I do not
know how ill I might have come away thinking of that idle mother
Boston. In other squares there were cattle for sale later, and
fish, but I cannot in even my present leniency claim that the
markets were open at the hour which the genteeler commerce of the
place found so indiscreet. They were irregular spaces of a form
in keeping with the general shambling and shapeless character of
the town, which, once for all, I must own was not an impressive
place.
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