[Illustration:  THE FIRST FLOOR OF TED’S HOUSE.]

“That ought to be the case with every country or suburban house.”

“It certainly will not fit our lot, and it seems to me best suited for a summer home or for a warm climate.”

Here Jack was called to his office, and Jill withdrew to attend to some household duties, first requesting the architect to redraw the plans so as to show accurately the construction and details.

“That is to say,” said Jack, “while Jill makes a pudding for dinner and I write a business letter of three lines, you are to lay out in complete shape the plans for a house containing all the modern abominations and improvements, that will cost ten thousand dollars, occupy two years in building and last forever.  That’s a modest request.”

“Not extravagant compared with the demands often made upon domestic architects, for it involves no downright contradictions.  I am not asked to show how a house worth ten thousand dollars can be built for five, or to break the Golden Rule, or to change the multiplication table and the cardinal points of the compass.”

CHAPTER VII.

BE HONEST AND KEEP WARM.

The architect went home to translate the instructions he had received into the language that builders understand.  Jack and Jill established themselves in the house that Jack built.  The proposed amendments were indefinitely postponed; Jill having consented to take the house temporarily as she had taken Jack permanently—­for better or worse—­only claiming her reserved right, in the case of the house, of privately finding all the fault she pleased.  Even the staircase, so favorable to a swift descent, remained unchanged, and in their own room the bed stood squarely in the middle of the floor.  Jack averred that this was intended when the house was planned, because the air is so much better in the centre of a room, and there is not so much danger of being struck by lightning.

One day there came a cold, gloomy rain on the wings of a raw east wind, and after Jack had gone to his office it occurred to Jill that a fire on the hearth in the parlor, which they used as a common sitting-room, would be exceedingly comfortable, but on removing a highly ornamental screen that served as a “fireboard,” she found neither grate nor fireplace, only a blank wall plastered and papered.  Her righteous wrath was kindled, not because she was compelled to get warm in some other way, but by the fraudulent character of the chimney-piece.  “I can imagine nothing more absurdly impertinent,” she declared to Jack when he came home, “than that huge marble mantel standing stupidly against the wall where there isn’t even a chimney for a background.  As a piece of furniture it is superfluous; as a wall decoration it is hideous; as a shelf it is preposterous; as a fireplace it is a downright lie.  If our architect suggests anything of the kind he will be dismissed on the instant.”