Book III.

CHAPTER I.

In a suite in the pretentious Nauvoo House Susannah found herself established.

She stood at her windows and looked east and west upon the fair white city, and more immediately upon the broad public square in which well-dressed people and handsome equipages were constantly seen.  In this square a man called Bennet drilled the Nauvoo Legion in the cool of the evenings.  This man had served in the regular army and had a native genius for soldiery.  Smith, alive always to the educational importance of shows, now provided money lavishly for uniforms, horses, and accoutrements, and the Nauvoo Legion formed a much grander spectacle than any body of State militia.

Twice a day under Susannah’s windows Smith’s carriage drew up, a pair of fine gray horses carrying the prophet to and fro upon the affairs of Church and State.  When he took Emma with him Susannah observed that she was always richly attired, and the other members of the Mormon hierarchy resident in Nauvoo, “bishops,” “elders,” “apostles,” “prophets,” passed constantly in and out of the house, positively shining in broadcloth and silken hats, their wives and daughters also in brilliant array.

Externally the success appeared to be complete, and beyond even the visionary’s most glorious dreams.  In the whole of the city no one was poor, no one ignorant of such knowledge as school-books could afford, no one drunken.  Every one was uplifted and animated beyond their ordinary capacity for effort and enjoyment by this material fulfilment of prophecy and the more glorious future hope which it involved.  Susannah was not well rested after her journey when Emma descended upon her with lavish gifts of silks and fine feathers.  Emma, grown patronising with prosperity, always plain and maternal, displayed her gifts and argued for their acceptance with broad satisfaction.

“Joseph says now that the Lord has given us freedom as touching wealth and plenty, it looks real mean, when your husband gave all he had to the Church in her tribulation, for you to be wearing plain clothes when you’re riding out with us.  What will the folks say?  Joseph says it looks to him as if you were real offended at being left so long up to Quincy when he was only waiting to get your rooms finished.”

Carried away, as was only natural, by her husband’s doctrine that the era of indulgence was ordained and not to be rejected, there was temporary deterioration in the fibre of Emma’s character.

Susannah would gladly have walked out and seen the beauty of the city and its surroundings alone, but she did not think it kind or polite to resist the good-natured importunity of her friends.  She was invited to drive with Smith to a grand review of the Nauvoo Legion which was to take place outside the town; then, finding that Emma and the children were to occupy another carriage, she made objection.