They were some of them playing very high, and it looked so quaint to see a rough miner putting $500 on a single throw.  We had a sheriff among our party.  There was to have been a raid of the state police on this particular saloon, for some new rule which had been made, but the sheriff quietly said the law might wait a night; as they were showing round some English ladies!  Now, don’t you call that exquisite courtesy, Mamma?  And what a sensible sort of administration of law, knowing its suitable time like that, the essence of tact and good taste, I call it; but I can’t say in every way what darlings all these Westerners are.  Our escort presented numbers of them to us, and without exception they had beautiful manners, the quiet ease of perfect breeding.  It is upsetting all Octavia’s theories, and she is coming round to Mrs. Van Brounker-Courtfield’s view that it is the life a man leads more than blood even, which tells; and there they are fighting the earth for the ore with great courage and endurance and hard manual labour, and so it produces finer expressions of faces, and lither forms than using your brains to be sharper in business than your neighbour.

All the time Nelson and the man with the roguish eye stood on either side of me, and the Senator moved from Octavia backwards and forwards, and when we got outside they both held my arms, not with the least familiarity, but the gentle protective respect they might have to an aged queen, or you, Mamma; and it was just as well, because the sidewalks were up on sort of sleepers, and were all uneven, and in some places a board worn through, so one could have a bad fall by oneself.  And it was very agreeable, but I noticed that Nelson held mine rather tight, and that his arm trembled.  I suppose he was still feeling the vibration of the train.  I hope you picture it all—­us walking through these quaint streets, surrounded by a crowd of great big men.  And neither Octavia nor I have ever walked in a street before at night, so it did seem fun.

After this we went to the large dance hall.  It was too interesting, and I simply longed to dance.  I must describe it to you, Mamma, because of course you have never heard of anything of this sort before.  It was a very large board room, like a barn with a rail across the front end of it, and a gate; and in the front part a drinking bar, the musicians at the other end on a platform, and beyond the rail and gate a beautiful dance floor, while at the side were boxes where one could retire to watch the dancing—­all rough boards and gaudy cretonne curtains.  The lady partners were not in evening dress, just blouses and skirts, and it seemed the custom for the man to pay the proprietor for each dance, take his lady through the gate, and when it was over escort her to the bar to have a drink.  It could only have been very innocent refreshment, as no one seemed the least drunk or offensive.  The bar part was crowded with every type of the mining camp, two-thirds of them splendid