d 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 ones; and though I saw multitudes of kindly, good-tempered
countenances, and a score which would have been called pretty anywh