"Jim, dissatisfied; impossible!"
"Yes, he thinks it's too small."
"He wants more servants, I suppose; several additional children, a lot more poor relations, and all the various items that go to make up a well-ordered household."
"No, no; it is the house that is too small."
"Excuse me, you said the home. The house is a very different affair."
"You remember," Bessie continued, "that when it was built ten years ago Jim thought it was not large enough. Now he is determined to sell it and build a new one. There are five good rooms besides the closets, and as there is nobody but Jim and me and the four children and one servant, we have all the room we need. We have always been perfectly comfortable, and I can't bear the thought of selling our home."
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?"