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 worships. In the multitude that bow are all sorts and conditions of girls. We wait for a prophet. A prophet that shall awaken womanhood and girlhood and show them that to be well dressed means to be appropriately dressed, that extravagant overdressing is clear evidence of the lack of good breeding and good taste; that those who indulge in clothes which they cannot afford and those who make of themselves living models for the exhibition of the latest extravagances, both proclaim the unworthy station in life where they _truly_ belong. We need a prophet who shall awaken womanhood and girlhood to see that the wild rush for sensational and unhealthful pleasures has always meant one thing--final inability to enjoy, the day when all pleasures pall.