“Until such time as the better element of society shall constitute itself a unit to protect the innocence of girlhood, just so long will vice continue to prosper.” Dr. Lawson’s mother again read the quotation from “Practical Christianity,” then closed her eyes to visualize the scenes of tragedy that prompted its utterance. When her son, Dr. Lawson, returned, a young man whose heart and soul was wrapped in sincere effort to protect girlhood flowers, “too innocent to realize,” she showed it to him. She gloried in being the mother of such as he, because she knew his life would go toward creating that unit. A single tenement room became the object of Fate’s pitiless visitation; Death called the invalid mother of Mary Fisk, likewise circumstances snatched from the working girl the position through which she eked her frugal existence. Crushed in spirit and bewildered by grief the girl accepted blindly the affected sympathy of a sleek individual who sought to possess a new toy, one whose beauty he could flaunt with pride. She was grateful because she knew naught of wiles, and she accepted his note addressed to “his sister,” where assistance was promised until she could assist herself. And because she was innocent and pure she could not see back of the paint and powder, or the jewels and gorgeous raiment, or the luxurious furnishings of the house with its occupants of red-lipped songsters. “They” tried to teach her to stain her lips with wine, because they knew wine would make one forget. The effort was futile and the girl was given unto one of the flauntily attired habituées whose better nature was long since calloused by forgetfulness. But even this strategy failed, for the prompting to taste of drink was met by a tender kiss of remonstrance, a kiss that awakened into torturing life from memory’s graveyard the realization of like innocence, so far back that the painted creature marveled that she remembered. Then she saw her kneel in prayer, and she asked her no more. So the “flower” was left unsullied, even as the slime gathered for further battle. The dazzlement of a café with its mirth, music and song was next tried, but here, too, Fate kindly permitted the protection due to an innocent one. Called upon to administer to a victim of a knife thrust, one of the patrons of the café, Dr. Lawson waited therein as the manager requested. He chanced to see and realize what was occurring when the “flower” was brought in and repeatedly urged to drink. He thought of the words he and his mother had talked of the evening before. The battle was short, but the rescue was complete. He told her of the scheme the painted creatures were playing, and although she was stunned, she trusted her rescuer and went with him to the home where the mother would be waiting. Here the doctor found the society girl whom he had believed he loved, and to whom he was engaged. She waited while the doctor placed the “flower” in his mother’s charge, and as he told the story the society girl permitted jealousy to creep in and reveal her real nature. “Send that girl back to her kind at once, or our engagement is broken,” was her inflamed retort. But the “flower” was not told to go. Instead, she accepted the home as a sanctuary, a home where there was a white-haired mother who understood, and a young doctor who wasted no tears over a broken engagement.