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A young man joins the citizens of the Spanish city of Zaragoza in defending against an attack by the French.

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IX

not know from where they produced a guitar; it is certain that they produced one from somewhere. One of those present graciously began to play the measures of that incomparable, divine, immortal dance, the jota , and in a moment a great revelry of dancing was going on.

Pirli, whose grotesque figure began in a French engineer and ended in a Spanish friar, was the most carried away of any of the dancers, and could not keep tune with his partner, a most graceful girl in Spanish highland dress, who was called Manuela, whom I noticed the first moment that I saw her. She was about twenty-two years of age, and was slender, of a pure pale complexion. The excitement of the dance quickly flushed her cheeks, and by degrees her movements grew more lively, unmindful of fatigue. With her eyes half shut, her cheeks rosy, her arms moving to the music of the sweet strains, she shook her skirts with lively grace; taking her steps lightly, and presenting to us now her brow, and now her shoulders, Manuela held us enchanted.

The ardor of the

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