Among the late-comers was a middle-aged woman, immaculately clean. Her snapping black eyes were set close to her nose, which was sharp and thin. Her lips closed firmly. Her thin black hair, drawn tightly back, was fastened in a tight wad at the back of her head. She wore an antiquated black alpaca dress, sans buttons, sans collar, sans cuffs; but the crowning glory of her costume, and her particular pride, was a breastpin of hair grapes. She was accompanied by an easy-going, stubby little Irishman, and a freckle-faced, tow-headed lad of ten. "Maw, Maw!" said the child, "there's my teacher!" "Mind y'r mannerses," said the woman, as she cuffed him on the ear. "I am mindin' my mannerses," he said sulkily. The teacher saw the shadow on the child's face, stepped forward to greet him, then extended her hand to the mother, saying: "Good evening, Mrs. Black. I am Brigham's teacher." But Mrs. Murphy was on the warpath. "I'm not Miz. Black," she snapped, assuming an air of offended dignity; "I'm Miz Murphy, the wife o' Patrick Murphy. This is my man," pointing to the stubby Irishman, with the air of a tragedy queen. The teacher thereupon shook hands with Patrick. Mrs. Murphy continued: "My first husband were a Young, my second a Thompson, my third a Wigger, my fourth a Black, and my fifth a Murphy." "I wonders who the nixt wan will be," said Patrick, grinning from ear to ear. "My woman lived wid the Mormons." Mrs. Murphy's eyes looked daggers. He continued: "An' she thought if it were good fur wan man to marry many women, it were equally good fur wan woman ter have many husbands, even if she didn't have all of thim ter onct." He chuckled. "Mind y'r bizness!" snapped the irate Mrs. Murphy. "An' so it came my turrhn, schoolma'am, an' she were that delighted wid me she have niver tried another man since. Eh, mavourneen?" Saying which, Patrick made his escape, shaking with laughter. Then Esther poured oil on the troubled waters, by telling Mrs. Murphy how interested she was in what Brigham had told her of his little sisters, Nora and Kathleen. "Won't you sit down, Mrs. Murphy?" Esther's voice and manner were very charming at that moment, as she drew a chair forward for her companion. Somewhat mollified, Mrs. Murphy seated herself. "Oh, I don't mind ef I do set down. I'm that tuckered out with scrubbin' and washin' an' cookin', I'm afeared I can't dance till mornin'." As she talked, she fanned herself with her red cotton handkerchief. "You enjoy dancing, don't you, Mrs. Murphy?" asked the teacher, with apparent interest. "Enjoy dancin'? I should say I did!" She suddenly assumed an air of great importance. "Back East where I was riz, I went ter all the barn raisin's, an' was accounted the best dancer in the county." She showed sudden interest in the fiddler, and tapped time to the music with her foot. "Then I joined the Mormons. When I lived in Utah, there was plenty o' dancin', I can tell you."