“But you don’t know yet,” he added, “how independent we are of you at the East.  Where do you think we got that central chandelier, and what d’ ye suppose we paid for it?”

It was a piece of workmanship which would have been creditable to any New York firm,—­apparently a richly carved circle, twined with gilt vines, leaves, and tendrils, blossoming all over with flaming wax-lights, and suspended by a massive chain of golden lustre.  So I replied that he probably paid a thousand dollars for it in New York.

“Capital!” exclaimed Brigham.  “I made it myself!  That circle is a cartwheel which I washed and gilded; it hangs by a pair of gilt ox-chains; and the ornaments of the candlesticks were all cut after my patterns out of sheet-tin!”

I talked with the President till a party of young girls, who seemed to regard him with idolatry, and whom, in return, he treated with a sage mixture of gallantry and fatherliness, came to him with an invitation to join in some old-fashioned contra-dance long forgotten at the East.  I was curious to see how he would acquit himself in this supreme ordeal of dignity; so I descended to the parquet, and was much impressed by the aristocratic grace with which he went through his figures.

After that I excused myself from numerous kind invitations by the ball-committee to be introduced to a partner and join in the dances.  The fact was that I greatly wished to make a thorough physiognomical study of the ball-room, and I know that my readers will applaud my self-denial in not dancing, since it enables me to tell them how Utah good society looks.

After spending an hour in a circuit and survey of the room as minute as was compatible with decency, I arrived at the following results.

There was very little ostentation in dress at the ball, but there was also very little taste in dressing.  Patrician broadcloth and silk were the rare exceptions, generally ill-made and ill-worn, but they cordially associated with the great mass of plebeian tweed and calico.  Few ladies wore jewelry or feathers.  There were some pretty girls swimming about in tasteful whip-syllabub of puffed tarlatan.  Where saintly gentlemen came with several wives, the oldest generally seemed the most elaborately dressed, and acted much like an Eastern chaperon toward her younger sisters. (Wives of the same man habitually besister each other in Utah.  Another triumph of grace!) Among the men I saw some very strong and capable faces; but the majority had not much character in their looks,—­indeed, differed little in that regard from any average crowd of men anywhere.  Among the women, to my surprise, I found no really degraded faces, though many stolid ones,—­only one deeply dejected, (this belonged to the wife of a hitherto monogamic husband, who had left her alone in the dress-circle, while he was dancing with a chubby young Mormoness, likely to be added to the family in a month or two,) but many impassive