Summer came very early that year, and the narrow streets of Bourg-Cailloux were full of the glare and heat of the season.

The pavements of white stones, always rough and painful to the feet, were burning hot in the middle of the day, and outside the walls, especially towards the sea, the light coloured, sandy roads were more scorching still.

The Hotel des Bains, just waking up after its winter repose, had proved but a comfortless dwelling.

After two or three days, therefore, Mrs.Costello had left it, and she and Lucia were now settled in a lodging in the city itself.

Their windows looked out on the "Place," where a brave sea-captain, the hero of Bourg-Cailloux, stood in effigy, and still seemed to keep watch over the place he had once defended, and where, twice a week, the market-women came in their long black cloaks and dazzling caps, and brought heaps of fragrant flowers and early fruit.