The following stories from Alarcón are offered to the student of Spanish in the belief that the easy style, the interest of the narrative, and the incidental sidelights that they throw on Spanish life and history will make the book a welcome one in the earlier stages of study.

The stories have been very fully annotated, and nothing that seemed to offer any real difficulty has been passed over. All proper names have been explained, with the exception of a few too well known or too insignificant to justify comment. The notes are further reënforced by an Idiomatic Commentary, to be studied in connection with the text. By frequent reviews and by oral drill in translating the idioms from either language to the other, with changes of person, tense, etc., wherever possible, the Commentary should enable the student to attain to a real mastery of the idioms that are here tabulated.

Easy exercises for translation into Spanish are added. They are based on very short passages from the text, and are so graded and arranged as to afford a systematic review of the elements of grammar, a drill which beginners always need.

The vocabulary, while registering all the words in the text, except such as are nearly or quite identical, does not aim at giving, without any labor of adaptation on the part of the student, the precise equivalent required.

The stories are complete, except for a few trifling omissions dictated by class-room proprieties.

Acknowledgment is gratefully made for a number of welcome suggestions due to my esteemed colleague Mr. A.R. Seymour.

CONTENTS

PREFACE V

LA BUENAVENTURA 1

LA CORNETA DE LLAVES 14

LAS DOS GLORIAS 26

EL AFRANCESADO 33