[Help-bash] Taking a slice of an array

[Bill Gradwohl]

#!/bin/bash
array=(a b c d e f g)
echo "${array[1]} ${#array[1]}"
string="address@hidden:1:4}"
echo "${string} ${#string}"


Produces:

address@hidden ycc# ./ascii 
b 1
b c d e 7

I was expecting 'bcde' with a length of 4 after reading man bash. 
Why the spaces? 
I thought that possibly it was some IFS related issue so I set IFS='' on a separate statement but that changed nothing.

Thank You

-- 
Bill Gradwohl