honor to the Alhambra.
Palms line the esplanade in front of the arched, walled entrance.
Collie dogs rise lazily under the deep embrasures of the arched plazas.
A parrot calls out some Spanish gibberish of bygone days. A snow-white
Persian kitten frisks its plumy tail across the brick-paved walk of the
inner patio; and across the courtyard I catch a glimpse of two Shetland
ponies nosing for notice over a fence beside an ancient Don Quixote nag
that evidently does duty for dignitaries above Shetland ponies. An air
of repose, of antiquity, of apartness, rests on the marble white
Mission, as of oriental dreams and splendor or European antiquity and
culture.

I ring the bell of the reception room to the right of the church
entrance. Not a sound but the echo of my own ring! I enter, cross
through the parlor and come on the Spanish patio or central courtyard.
What a place for prayers and meditation and the soul's repose! Arched
promenades line both sides of the inner court. Here Jesuit and
Franciscan monks have walked and prayed and meditated since the
Sixteenth Century. By the hum as of busy bees to the right, I locate the
schoolrooms, and come on the office of the Mother Superior Aquinias.

What a pity so many of us have an early impress of religion as of
vinegar aspect and harsh duty hard as flint and unhuman as a block of
wood. This Mother Superior is merry-faced and red-blooded and human and
dear. She evidently believes that goodness should be warmer, dearer,
truer, more attractive and kindly than evil; and all the little Indian
wards of the four schoolrooms look happy and human and red-blooded as
the Mother Superior.

A collie pup flounders round us up and down the court walk where the old
missionary monks suffered cruel martyrdom. Poll, the parrot, utters
sententious comment; and the Shetland ponies whinny greetings to their
mistress. All this does not sound like vinegar goodness, does it?

But it is when you enter the church that you get the real surprise.
Three times, the desertion of this Mission was forced by massacre and
pillage. Twice it was abandoned owing to the expulsion of Jesuit and
Franciscan by temporal power. For seventy years, the only inhabitants of
a temple stately as the Alhambra were the night bats, the Indian
herders, the border outlaws of the United States and Mexico. Yet, when
you enter, the walls are covered with wonderful mural painting. Saints'
statues stand about the altar, and grouped ab