r a long time she met with fair success.
She did not call the family to see the result, for there might be more
words of disapproval and though they would not influence her in the
least still it was a bore to listen to them. The new arrangement was
very uncomfortable and it did seem strange to be apparently without ears
but she was an earnest devotee and what it pleased the idol to dictate,
that she did. Next she tried the new concoctions for cheeks and
eyebrows. The result pleased her. She called to her mother to ask the
time and exclaiming at the lateness of the hour called back that she was
dead tired and would go to bed. When she hung up her skirt she was
dismayed to see how worn it was. She had paid for the style in it, not
for the material. She did not go to sleep directly though she had a
right to be tired, for she had to get up very early each morning and she
was obliged to stand all day at her work. But she was troubled. Even
the pleasure of possessing the clothes so carefully protected in the
closet could not take away the anxiety produced by the conscious need of
rubbers and a winter suit. But at last the poor little devotee, the
ardent worshiper of the twin idols, worn out by thinking of it all fell
asleep.

Over on Blank Street, in another part of town that day, another
worshiper and her devoted mother had been talking over plans for the
future. Both were "climbers," at least they thought it was climbing.
They had social ambitions and it was whispered by their enemies that
they intended, at whatever cost to enter the inner circle of those who
worshiped the idols. Last year the young girl who wanted to go to
college had "come out." It had been a wonderful season but it had left
her with a pale face and dark circles under her lovely eyes. The rest
cure had done much for her but her physician had said another season in
town would undo all that had been done. Her mother was loath to believe
it. She had always been able to dismiss her husband's arguments and had
done so successfully the night before when he plead for a year of
roughing it in the west, society forgotten and the things of nature for
amusement and fun. "If we drop out now," she told her daughter, "all is
lost." And so they made their plans. The daughter was not an adept in
learning the rapid succession of combination dances wherein orientalism,
the harem, the submerged tenth, and the various beasts of the field and
fowls of the barnyard figured, so