[News from Nowhere by William Morris]@TWC D-Link book
News from Nowhere

CHAPTER IV: A MARKET BY THE WAY
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We had pulled up amongst a crowd of carts, wherein sat handsome healthy-looking people, men, women, and children very gaily dressed, and which were clearly market carts, as they were full of very tempting-looking country produce.
I said, "I need not ask if this is a market, for I see clearly that it is; but what market is it that it is so splendid?
And what is the glorious hall there, and what is the building on the south side ?" "O," said he, "it is just our Hammersmith market; and I am glad you like it so much, for we are really proud of it.

Of course the hall inside is our winter Mote-House; for in summer we mostly meet in the fields down by the river opposite Barn Elms.

The building on our right hand is our theatre: I hope you like it." "I should be a fool if I didn't," said I.
He blushed a little as he said: "I am glad of that, too, because I had a hand in it; I made the great doors, which are of damascened bronze.

We will look at them later in the day, perhaps: but we ought to be getting on now.

As to the market, this is not one of our busy days; so we shall do better with it another time, because you will see more people." I thanked him, and said: "Are these the regular country people?
What very pretty girls there are amongst them." As I spoke, my eye caught the face of a beautiful woman, tall, dark-haired, and white-skinned, dressed in a pretty light-green dress in honour of the season and the hot day, who smiled kindly on me, and more kindly still, I thought on Dick; so I stopped a minute, but presently went on: "I ask because I do not see any of the country-looking people I should have expected to see at a market--I mean selling things there." "I don't understand," said he, "what kind of people you would expect to see; nor quite what you mean by 'country' people.


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