To begin with, Selma hinted to Mrs. Williams that Mr. Parsons might do worse than employ Wilbur to design his house.  Flossy accepted the suggestion with enthusiasm and promised her support, adding that Mr. Parsons was a person of sudden and strong fancies, and that if he were to take a fancy to Wilbur, the desired result would be apt to follow.  Selma quickly decided that Mr. Parsons must be made to like her, for she feared lest Wilbur’s quiet, undemonstrative manner would fail to attract him.  Evidently he admired the self-confidence and manly assertion of Gregory Williams, and would be liable to regard Wilbur as lacking in force and enterprise.  The reflection that she would thus be working—­as necessarily she would—­for the eternal progress of truth, added a pleasant savor to the undertaking, for it was clear that her husband was an ideal architect for the purpose, and she would be doing a true service to Mr. Parsons in convincing him that this was so.  Altogether her soul was in an agreeable flutter, notwithstanding that her neighbor Flossy had recently received invitations to two or three large balls, and been referred to in the society columns of the newspapers as the fascinating and clever wife of the rising banker Gregory Williams.

The Littletons were promptly given by Flossy the opportunity to make the acquaintance of the Parsons family.  Mr. Parsons was a ponderous man of over sixty, with a solid, rotund, grave face and a chin whisker.  He was absorbed in financial interests, though he had retired from active business, and had come to New York to live chiefly to please his wife and daughter.  Mrs. Parsons, who was somewhat her husband’s junior, was a devotee, or more correctly, a debauchee, of hotel life.  Since the time when they had become exceedingly rich, about ten years before, they had made a grand tour of the hotels of this country and Europe.  By so doing Mrs. Parsons and her daughter felt that they became a part of the social life of the cities which they visited.  Although they had been used to plain, if not slovenly, house-keeping before the money came, both the wife and daughter had evolved into connoisseurs of modish and luxurious hotel apparatus and garniture.  They had learned to revel in many courses, radiantly upholstered parlors, and a close acquaintance with the hotel register.  Society for them, wherever they went, meant finding out the names of the other guests and dressing for them, being on easy terms with the head waiter and elevator boy, visiting the theatres, and keeping up a round of shopping in pursuit of articles of apparel.  They wore rich garments and considerable jewelry, and plastered themselves—­especially the daughter—­with bunches of violets or roses self-bestowed.  Mrs. Parsons was partial to perfume, and they both were addicted to the free consumption of assorted bonbons.  To be sure they had made some acquaintances in the course of their peregrinations, but one reason for moving to New York was that Mrs.