Here Bessie began to show symptoms of dissolution, but swallowing her emotion she continued, “If we could build on a room or two as we need them I wouldn’t mind it.  But if you advise us to sell this house for the sake of having another, I’ll”—­

“We shan’t advise any such thing,” said Jack, “but it’s perfectly natural for Jim to think you ought to have a larger, more modern house.”

“But I don’t want a more modern house,” Bessie protested, “if there is any created thing that I despise it is a ‘modern’ house, made up of bay windows and crooked turrets, and shingled balconies, and peaked roofs, and grotesque little fandangoes of wood and copper and terra cotta, that have no more dignity or repose, or beauty or homelike appearance, than a crazy quilt or a Chinese puzzle.  They are simply outrageous, abominable.  I would sooner have the children brought up in a reform school or a house of correction.”

“How would you like a colonial house?”

Bessie’s indignation had spent itself, and she resumed her ordinary, but sometimes misleading manner.

“Isn’t it a pity we were not all born a hundred years ago, then we might have had colonial houses.  But why should I want to live in an uncomfortable old curiosity shop when I like my house just as it is?  Our trouble is that Jim wants the house twice as large as it is now and I want only one more room.”

“Bessie,” said Jack, in his most fatherly manner, “I am surprised that two sensible people like you and Jim should fall into such a distressing controversy over nothing, absolutely nothing.  You are already in perfect accord.  Jim says the house is only half large enough.  You say you want one more room.  The house is now just thirty-three feet long and thirty-three feet wide; add a new room thirty-three feet square; you will have the one extra room, and Jim will have the house doubled in size.  Isn’t that right?”

“Yes,” said Jill; “It is exactly what I should have suggested if you had given me a chance.  Do you remember the charming room in the old Florentine palace, where we spent the winter, and how we enjoyed it, and finally measured it for the benefit of some other Americans who intended to build a new house as soon as they got home?  That was just thirty-three feet square and eighteen feet high.  There was a grand piano in one corner, in another a group of chairs with bookcases, in another sofas and chairs and tables scattered about, so that in effect it was equal to several small rooms.  Indeed one of our party described it in a home letter as a magnificent apartment one hundred feet each way.  It would accommodate several callers, with their different groups of friends, and it was of course a capital place for music and dancing.  In your new room you will have one corner for the children and another for yourselves.  The Dorcas society can meet at one side while your little Jack and his friends are playing games at the other.  It won’t be many years before Bessie will claim a large section, including one of the bay windows, for her own use.”