In the principal cities the post-offices are to-day only opened for business during two hours of the twenty-four.

In the year of the Franco-Prussian war there was no postal service at all to the disaffected parts of the northern provinces.
At the end of a week, Marcos rose at three o'clock and rode sixty miles before sunset to keep his word with Juanita.

He did not trust the railway, which indeed was in constant danger of being cut by Carlist or Royalist, but performed the distance by road where he met many friends from Navarre and one or two from the valley of the Wolf.

A thousand reports, a hundred rumours and lies innumerable, were on the roads also, traveling hither and thither over Spain.

And Marshall Prim seemed to be the favoured god of the moment.
Marcos was at his post outside the convent school wall at seven o'clock.
He heard the clock of San Fernando strike eight.