d to be as happy as the
day's long. They don't--"

"How they must quarrel, a lot of wives together!" interrupted a
discontented voice.

Brother Jarrum set himself energetically to disprove this supposition.
He succeeded. Belief is easy to willing minds.

"Which is best?" asked he.--"To be one of the wives of a rich saint,
where all the wives is happy, and honoured, and well dressed; or to toil
and starve, and go next door to naked, as a poor man's solitary wife
does here? I know which I should choose if the two chances was offered
me. A woman can't put her foot inside the heavenly kingdom, I tell you,
unless she has got a husband to lay hold of her hand and draw her in.
The wives of a saint are safe; paradise is in store for 'em; and that's
why the Gentiles' wives--them folks that's for ever riling at us--leave
their husbands to marry the saints."

"Does the saints' wives ever leave 'em to marry them others--the
Gentiles?" asked that troublesome Davies.

"Such cases have been heered of," responded Brother Jarrum, shaking his
head with a grave solemnity of manner. "They have braved the punishment
and done it. But the act has been rare."

"What is the punishment?" inquired somebody's wife.

"When a female belonging to the Latter Day Saints--whether she's married
or single--falls off from grace and goes over to them Gentiles, and
marries one of 'em, she's condemned to be buffeted by Satan for a
thousand years."

A pause of consternation.

"Who condemns her?" a voice, more venturesome than the rest, was heard
to ask.

"There's mysteries in our faith which can't be disclosed even to you,"
was the reply of Brother Jarrum. "Them apostate women are condemned to
it; and that's enough. It's not everybody as can see the truth.
Ninety-nine may see it, and the hundredth mayn't."

"Very true, very true," was murmured around.

"I think I see the waggins and the other vehicles arriving now!"
rapturously exclaimed Brother Jarrum, turning his eyes right up into his
head, the better to take in the mental vision. "The travellers, tired
with their journey, washed and shaved, and dressed, and the women's hair
anointed, all flagrant with oil and frantic with joy--shouting, singing,
and dancing to the tune of the advancing fiddles! I think I see the
great prophet himself, with his brass-band in front and his body-guard
around him, meeting the travellers and shaking their hands individ'ally!
I think I see the joy of the women, a