The four stories comprising this little volume are, by kind permissionof the author,
taken from Aguas fuertes, a volume of novelas ycuadros. They were selected for class
use because the language issmooth and easy, being almost entirely free from
troublesome idiomaticexpressions and constructions.
I realize that the notes are not exhaustive, but I have endeavored toexplain every
serious difficulty either in the notes or in thevocabulary, by the aid of which the
student should be able to arrive ata perfect comprehension of the text.
The volume is intended for first year students, and as it has been myexperience that
the first year's reading is rather for the acquisitionof a vocabulary than for a study of
grammatical constructions, I haveavoided all grammatical explanations.
