tell us again this soldier-boy's story. Somewhere he did a deed of daring. Somehow he risked his life for his country. And a grateful government gave him this, his badge of courage. It's fine to have in the family, there in the parlour cabinet. You are proud, are you not, to be of a brave man's race? But blood, they say, will always tell. Heroism and daring may be pulsing in your veins to-day as once in his.
Have you ever thought how it might be to have your own badge of courage? Ah, yes, even though you are a woman. No, it is true, there are no such decorations that have been handed down from grandmother or great-grandmother or great-great-grandmother. It is not that they did not deserve them. But their deeds were done too far behind the front for that recognition. To-day, as it happens, the new woman movement has advanced right up to the firing-line, and it's different. Every nation fighting over in Europe is bestowing honours of war on women. There is no reason to doubt that special acts of gallantry and service on the part of American women now in action with the hospitals and relief agencies that have accompanied our troops abroad, shall be similarly recognised by the War Department. To earn a decoration, you see—not merely to inherit one—that can be done to-day.
She was the first war heroine I had ever seen, Eleanor Warrender. Over in London I gazed at her with bated breath—and to my surprise and astonishment found her just like other women.
Among those called to the colours in England in
