its, not less innocent and astonished than those of our own
period; there were doves and singing-birds to be bought as presents for
the children; there were even kittens for sale, and here and there a
handsome _gattuccio_, or "Tom," with the highest character for mousing;
and, better than all, there were young, softly-rounded cheeks and bright
eyes, freshened by the start from the far-off castello [walled village]
at daybreak, not to speak of older faces with the unfading charm of
honest goodwill in them, such as are never quite wanting in scenes of
human industry. And high on a pillar in the centre of the place--a
venerable pillar, fetched from the church of San Giovanni--stood
Donatello's stone statue of Plenty, with a fountain near it, where, says
old Pucci, the good wives of the market freshened their utensils, and
their throats also; not because they were unable to buy wine, but
because they wished to save the money for their husbands.

But on this particular morning a sudden change seemed to have come over
the face of the market. The _deschi_, or stalls, were indeed partly
dressed with their various commodities, and already there were
purchasers assembled, on the alert to secure the finest, freshest
vegetables and the most unexceptionable butter. But when Bratti and his
companion entered the piazza, it appeared that some common preoccupation
had for the moment distracted the attention both of buyers and sellers
from their proper business. Most of the traders had turned their backs
on their goods, and had joined the knots of talkers who were
concentrating themselves at different points in the piazza. A vendor of
old-clothes, in the act of hanging out a pair of long hose, had
distractedly hung them round his neck in his eagerness to join the
nearest group; an oratorical cheesemonger, with a piece of cheese in one
hand and a knife in the other, was incautiously making notes of his
emphatic pauses on that excellent specimen of _marzolino_; and elderly
market-women, with their egg-baskets in a dangerously oblique position,
contributed a wailing fugue of invocation.

In this general distraction, the Florentine boys, who were never wanting
in any street scene, and were of an especially mischievous sort--as who
should say, very sour crabs indeed--saw a great opportunity. Some made
a rush at the nuts and dried figs, others preferred the farinaceous
delicacies at the cooked provision stalls--delicacies to which certai