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pie of famous memory. In it sat eight chickens of an age to make their debut on the platter, all settled into a fluffy, soft-gray cushion, out of which their little heads and necks and half-raised wings peeped and turned and fluttered in a manner that testified to the agitation of their spirits. The woman carrying this basket would have made a pretty caryatid, chickens and all, so straight was she, so robust her shoulders and so full and regular the oval of her face. The cattle were superb--some immensely large, others delicately small, and all with such long, slim, pointed horns as made one shrink. Those strong, high-lifted heads carried their weapons like unsheathed scymitars. Red cords were twined across their foreheads from horn to horn, and red tassels swung beside their faces. This procession passed in almost entire silence, with only a pattering of hoofs that sounded like heavy rain. Presently appeared a light wagon in which sat alone a large fleshy woman, who had quite the expression of one making a triumphal entry into the city. Her black hair was elaborately dressed in braids fastened with gold pins and in short curls on the forehead, and was lightly covered with a black lace veil. Her dress was a sky-blue silk, with a lace shawl carefully draped over the wide shoulders. Her hands were loaded with rings and her neck with gold chains, and a large medallion swung over two large brooches. There was a smile of conscious superiority on her coarsely-handsome face as she glanced over the contadini, who humbly made way for her. A small, meek, well-dressed man who walked beside the wagon seemed to be the proprietor of its occupant, and to be somewhat oppressed by his good fortune. There was no room for him in the wagon. It occurred to me that this might be an avatar of the old woman of Banbury Cross. The crowd thinned away like rain that from a heavy shower falls only in scattered drops, and I was about turning from the window when my eyes fell upon a beautiful bit of color across the way, standing out, as so much Italian color does, against the background of a gray stone wall. It was an odd, slim cone, something over five feet high, made of grass and clover sprinkled through with burning poppies. I was just thinking that this verdure must be fastened to a pole set into the ground when it began to move. The fresh, long grass waved, the poppies glowed like live coals when blown upon, two slim brown feet and ankles
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