Along the walls hens were clucking, ranged in piles and tied together by the feet.  Here and there were pyramids of eggs, vegetables, fruit.  In “shops” that were set up in the morning and taken down at night, drygoods dealers were selling colored sashes, strips of cotton cloth and calico, and black woolsey, the eternal garb of every native of the Jucar valley.  Beyond the Prado, in El Alborchi, was the hog market; and then came the Hostal Gran where horses were tried out.  On Wednesdays all the business of the neighborhood was transacted—­money borrowed or paid back, poultry stocks replenished, hogs bought to fatten on the farms, whole families anxiously following their progress; and new cart-horses, especially, the matter of greatest concern to the farmers, secured on mortgage, usually, or with cash saved up by desperate hoarding.

Though the sun had barely risen, the crowd, smelling of sweat and soil, already filled the market place with busy going and coming.  The orchard-women embraced as they met, and with their heavy baskets propped on their hips, went into the chocolate shops to celebrate the encounter.  The men gathered in groups; and from time to time, to “buck up” a little, would go off in parties to swallow a glass of sweet brandy.  In and out among the rustics walked the city people:  “petty bourgeois” of set manners, with old capes, and huge hempen baskets, where they would place the provisions they had bought after tenacious hagglings; senoritas, who found in these Wednesday markets a welcome relief from the monotony of their secluded life at home; idlers who spent hour after hour at the stall of some vendor friend, prying into what each marketer carried in his basket, grumbling at the stinginess of some and praising the generosity of others.

Rafael gazed at his friend in sheer astonishment.  What a beauty she was!  Who could ever have taken her, in that costume, for a world-famous prima donna!

Leonora looked the living picture of an orchard girl:  a plain cotton dress, in anticipation of spring; a red kerchief around her neck; her blond hair uncovered, combed back with artful carelessness and hastily knotted low on the back of her head.  Not a jewel, not a flower!  Only her height and her striking comeliness marked her off from the other girls.  Under the curious, devouring glances of the whole market throng, Rafael smilingly greeted her, feasting his eyes on her fresh, pink skin, still radiant from the morning bath, inhaling the subtle, indefinable fragrance that hovered about that strong, healthy, youthful person.

She was constantly smiling, as if bent on dazzling the bumpkins, who were gaping at her from a distance, with the pearly flash of her teeth.  The market-place began to buzz with admiring curiosity, or the thrill of scandal.  There, face to face, in view of the whole city, the deputy and the opera singer were talking and laughing together like the best of friends!