It is so strange, so extraordinary.' "And Charlotte explained.

Her husband was a sailor.

To be near him, she had been in Spain at the outbreak of the revolution, and had remained there till he was ordered home.

Now that the terror was subsiding, there was--for them, as foreigners--but little risk.

She had persuaded her husband, whose vessel, owing to some slight accident at sea, had been obliged to put in at the neighbouring port, to let her come to have a look at the old town, at the old house, or garden rather, she still loved so dearly.