Then she smiled at herself for this
impression; for, after all, what did she know of American men?
When they turned at last, coming back toward the Mission, to which,
somehow, all the rest had been leading up, the setting sun was beating the
dusk into sparks of fire.
At first glimpse, alighting before the steps of the restored Mission
church, Angela compared it unfavourably in her mind with the lovely
shabbiness of San Gabriel. She had a feeling that Santa Barbara the
pleasure-place lived on Santa Barbara the Mission, with its history and
romance. But she had only to go inside to beg pardon of the church for her
first impression. It was easy to remember that there had never been the
same stress of poverty here as among the missionary Fathers of San
Gabriel, in the City of Angela. Yet in this place, too, there was the same
pathetic effect which had brought tears to Angela's eyes in the dim little
church at San Gabriel; an effect that once felt and understood, gives the
old Spanish Missions their great, undying charm. At Santa Barbara--sweet
name, ringing like the silver bells of the Franciscan Fathers--as at San
Gabriel, there had been the same striving to copy the noble designs and
proportions of the Spanish cathedrals, visioned in spirit by the homesick
monks, who knew well they would never see them with bodily eyes again.
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