Another method is to take a room in a house that furnishes merely lodgings, where one can be housed for a sum ranging between $3 and $5 a week. A small gas-stove will serve for preparing breakfast and a light supper at night, and the hearty meal of the day can be had at a restaurant at one o'clock, when others are lunching. When two girls club together this is not a bad plan. The quickly cooked oatmeal, an egg, and a cup of tea will serve for breakfast; jam, a roll, and a glass of milk make a supper; and there are many cheap restaurants where a table d'hôte midday dinner of the most ample description is to be had for fifty cents, and one portion is ample for two. There are, of course, in the less-fashionable quarters of town, plain, cheap boarding-houses where everything is included for from $6 to $7 a week, but these rarely give the use of a general drawing-room, and the accommodations are very plain. Still, in Washington Square, Lafayette Place, and similar places one may by careful search sometimes find excellent lodgings at a most reasonable rate. Still another method is to rent a large empty room somewhere, usually a sort of loft at the top of a house, and furnish it one's self. This is a popular plan among the girls in the art schools who wish a home and studio combined. They divide off the corners of the room by cheap screens into bedrooms and kitchen, and leave the centre for sitting and work room. They paint their floor to save a carpet, content themselves with a divan or two, a table, and a few chairs, and they do "light housekeeping" by the aid of a gas-stove, tinned goods, and the delicatessen stores, where one can find all manner of cooked dishes needing only to be warmed. When two or three girls combine on such a scheme they can keep their expenses down to about $18 or $20 a month each, and have a very good time of it. There is also apartment life, which is not very dear, and is often most agreeable. Indeed, if it can be afforded, it is the pleasantest of all, since no one appreciates the pleasant privacy and relaxation of home life more than the woman who must face the world and fight her own battle. These housekeeping flats may be had all the way from $25 a month up, according to size, location, and convenience. A maid-of-all-work will serve as laundress, cook, and house-maid for from $12 to $15 a month, and the other expenses can be regulated according to one's means; but when two or three share the expenses, and the pennies are looked after closely, this is not an expensive mode of life.