1914, she is one of the specially distinguished who have followed the battle-flags to within sight of the trenches, within sound of the guns. And, somehow, one will inadvertently think of these as some sort of super-woman. Before this there have been those who did what they could for their men under arms. There was one woman who risked her life heroically for British soldiers. And Florence Nightingale's statue has been set along with those of great men in a London public square. In this war many women are risking their lives. They are receiving all the crosses of iron and silver and gold. And to the lady of the decoration who wears this war jewelry, it is a souvenir of sights such as women's eyes have seldom or never looked on before since the world began.
I have said that Eleanor Warrender seemed to me just like other women. And she is at first; other war heroines are. Until you catch the expression in their eyes, which affords you suddenly, swiftly, the fleeting glimpse of the soul of a woman who knows. There is that about all real experience that does not fail to leave its mark. You may get it in the quality of the voice, in a chance gesture that is merely the sweep of the hand, or in the subtle emanation of the personality that we call atmosphere. But wherever else it may register, there are unveiled moments when you may read it in the eyes of these women who know—that they have seen such agony and suffering and horror as have only been approximated before in imaginative writing. The ancient pagans mentioned in their books that have come
