very simple conveniences, and there they kept house. Rent
was $10.50 a month; gas for heating and cooking, $1.80; and food for the
two, about $5 a week. As Regina did her own washing, the weekly expense
for each was but $3.67, less than many lodgers pay for very much less
comfort.

The greatest pleasure the girls had in their little establishment was the
opportunity it gave them for entertaining friends. Before, it had been
impossible for them to see any one, except in other people's crowded
living-rooms, or on the street.

Regina was engaged to a young apothecary student, whom she expected to
marry in the spring. Like her, he was in New York without his family, and
he took his meals at the two girls' little flat with them.

Regina's father, who was living in Russia with a second wife, had sent
her $100 when she wrote him of her intended marriage. This, and about $40
saved in the six weeks of earning $10, were her reserve fund in the long
dull season.

The inquirer saw Regina again a few days before Thanksgiving. She was
still out of work, but was learning at home to do some mechanical china
decorating for the Christmas trade.

Among the milliners, several girls were studying to acquire, not only a
training in a secondary trade, but the better general education which
Frances Ashton, a young American girl of twenty, had obtained through
better fortunes.

Her father, a professional man, had been comfortably situated. Without
anticipating the necessity of supporting herself, she had studied
millinery at Pratt Institute for half a year. Then, because it was rather
a lark, she had gone to work in New York. Most of her wage was spent for
board and recreation, her father sending her an allowance for clothes.

After a year, his sudden death made it necessary for her to live more
economically, as her inheritance was not large. The expenses of an attack
of typhoid one summer, and of an operation the next year, entirely
consumed it.

In the year she described, she had been a copyist in one of the most
exclusive shops on Fifth Avenue. The woman in charge was exceptionally
considerate, keeping the girls as long as possible. She used to weep
when she was obliged to dismiss them, for she realized the suffering and
the temptation of the long idle period.

However, the season had lasted only three or three and a half months at a
time, from February 1 to May 15, and from August 18 to December 4. During
the six busy weeks in t