about nine o'clock
By eight o'clock in the December morning the market was in full swing : a great crowd of handsome mountain people , all peasants , nearly all in costume , with different head-dresses . Ciccio and Pancrazio and Alvina went quietly about . They bought pots and pans and vegetables and sweet-things and thick rush matting and two wooden arm-chairs and one old soft arm-chair , going quietly and bargaining modestly among the crowd , as Anglicized Italians do . The sun came on to the market at about nine o'clock , and then , from the terrace of the town gate , Alvina looked down on the wonderful sight of all the coloured dresses of the peasant women , the black hats of the men , the heaps of goods , the squealing pigs , the pale lovely cattle , the many tethered asses -- and she wondered if she would die before she became one with it altogether . It was impossible for her to become one with it altogether . Ciccio would have to take her to England again , or to America . He was always hinting at America .