women dressed in all the extremes of fashion, laughed and
chatted or grew tense and strained as they exchanged their cards. Over
in one corner some of the younger women blew curls of smoke into the
air. The baby's mother sat there.

It seemed very lonely to the little boy lying in his nursery. The sobs
ceased, the baby grew interested in life once more, climbed over the
side of the bed, slipped to the floor, softly opened the door into the
hall. His eyes were swollen and he was weak from the shaking and the
strain of the day and when he reached the shining staircase, his foot
slipped.

The nurse's face grew pale when she picked up the unconscious child. The
doctor said he would live but the spine seemed to be injured and the
full result of the fall he could not predict.

While they were bending anxiously over him, he opened his eyes and said
"Muvver." Just then she entered the hall and they could hear the
congratulatory words of her friend. She had won. Then she started up the
stairs. Let us draw the curtain, for on the altar of Fashion and
Pleasure _a mother_ has offered as a sacrifice, _her child_.

You who have read this chapter have been looking with me upon a series
of rapidly moving pictures. Perhaps they have seemed too dramatic as
they have passed. But they are not fiction--they picture facts. They are
not in the past. The same scenes are being repeated now all over our
country and across the sea. No one can number the worshipers of the Twin
Idols and no one can estimate the awful cost of the devotion of their
followers.

It is right that a girl should enjoy pretty clothes and desire them. It
is right that she should spend a fair part of her income on the
necessary gowns for parties and pleasures. It is right that girls should
seek pleasure and enjoy life to the full. It is right that young mothers
keep their youth and enjoy the society of their friends. But when
girlhood erects an altar and in the presence of Fashion and Pleasure
sacrifices time and strength, money, honesty, thrift and virtue, then it
is _sin_ and the individual and society must suffer. At this present
moment in our country, as in the ages past in nations and with peoples
that are now being forgotten, girlhood is worshiping the Twin Idols and
one is compelled to ask himself if the final result will be the same.

It is not alone the rich girl who bows the knee in the presence of
Fashion and offers her best to Pleasure, the poor girl also