Mrs.Lane and her two children will do their own work, and therefore steps and stairs must be few, and yet they wish light and air and cleanliness.
The author hopes that her readers will make a study of house-plans, not the cheap ones, but those that will bear the test of time and living in.
The increased cost of shelter should mean both more comfort and greater beauty.

If it does not, something is wrong with society.
It appears from all that has been gathered that single houses for a family of five will cost about $5000 to $10,000 for some years to come; that these houses should be so constructed and cared for as to rent for $300 to $400 if the occupant is to keep the grounds in order, to use the house with care, and furnish heat and light.
The question of return on capital invested and of care of exteriors and grounds must be studied most carefully in the light of the new conditions, and a new set of conventions devised by society to meet the various circumstances arising out of them.
This suburban living is the vital point to be attacked, because in cities the matter is already pretty well settled; there is in sight nothing that will greatly change the rule already given, a cost of $1000 per room of about 1200 cubic feet, with the finish and sanitary appliances demanded.
Our family of five must pay for rent $500 to $800 for the smallest quarters they can compress themselves into.

Subtracting the cost of heat and light and the car-fares, this may be no more expensive than the suburban house at $300 or $400, _but_ the difference comes in light and air.

The upper floors of an isolated skyscraper give more than a country house, but at the expense of other houses in the darkened street.
In the city the question is then not so much one of cost of construction as of a fair arrangement of streets and parks, so as to avoid the loss of light and air for living-places.

The single individual may find shelter of a safe and refined sort in all respects except air for $200 to $300 a year in the newer apartment-houses, and two friends to share it may halve this sum.