But the prettiest thing was the dancing of two little girl
pupils, one fair and thin and of an angelic gracefulness, and the other
plump and dark, who was as dramatic as the blond was lyrical. They
accompanied themselves with castanets, and, though the little fatling
toed in and wore a common dress of blue-striped gingham, I am afraid she
won our hearts from her graceful rival. Both were very serious and gave
their whole souls to the dance, but they were not more childishly
earnest than an older girl in black who danced with one of the gaudy
graduates, panting in her anxious zeal and stopping at last with her
image of the Virgin she resembled flung wildly down her back from the
place where it had hung over her heart.
V
We preferred walking home from Senor Otero's house through the bright,
quiescing street, because in driving there we had met with an adventure
which we did not care to repeat. We were driving most unaggressively
across a small plaza, with a driver and a friend on the box beside him
to help keep us from harm, when a trolley-car came wildly round a corner
at the speed of at least two miles an hour and crossed our track.
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