Littleton's quarter of an hour of exaltation was rudely checked by a note from Mrs. Parsons, requesting an interview in regard to the plans. When he presented himself he found her and her daughter imbued with definite ideas on the subject of architects and architecture. In the eyes of Mrs. Parsons the architect of her projected house was nothing but a young man in the employ of her husband, who was to guide them as to measurements, carpentry, party-walls and plumbing, but was otherwise to do her bidding for a pecuniary consideration, on the same general basis as the waiter at the hotel or the theatre ticket-agent. As to architecture, she expected him to draw plans just as she expected dealers in carpets or wall-papers to show her patterns in easy succession. "I don't care for that; take it away." "That is rather pretty, but let me see something else." What she said to Littleton was, "We haven't quite decided yet what we want, but, if you'll bring some plans the next time you call, we'll let you know which we like best. There's a house in Vienna I saw once, which I said at the time to Lucretia I would copy if I ever built. I've mislaid the photograph of it, but I may be able to tell you when I see your drawings how it differed from yours. Lucretia has a fancy for something Moorish or Oriental. I guess Mr. Parsons would prefer brown-stone, plain and massive, but he has left it all to us, and both daughter and I think we'd rather have a house which would speak for itself, and not be mixed up with everybody else's. You'd better bring us half a dozen to choose from, and between me and you and Lucretia, we'll arrive at something elegant and unique." This was sadly disillusionizing to Littleton, and the second experience was no less so. The refined outline sketches proffered by him were unenthusiastically surveyed and languidly discarded like so many wall-papers. It was evident that both the mother and daughter were disappointed, and Littleton presently divined that their chief objection was to the plainness of the several designs. This was made unmistakably obvious when Mrs. Parsons, after exhibiting a number of photographs of foreign public buildings with which she had armed herself, surveyed the most ornate, holding it out with her head on one side, and exclaimed impressively, "This is more the sort of thing we should like. I think Mr. Parsons has already explained to you that he desired our house to be as handsome as possible." "I had endeavored to bear that in mind," Littleton retorted with spirit. "I believe that either of these plans would give you a house which would be handsome, interesting and in good taste."