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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.