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For Va lour
How a brave little girl of Canada inspired her coward brother to manhood and the Victoria Cross.
By Robert Foster
WHEN Henry Nobbs decided to get married he was earning just nineteen dollars a week in a Canadian insurance office, and he figured that he ought to have at least a thousand to start housekeeping. Unfortunately his expenditures equaled — more often exceeded — his income, and there was no savings fund to draw upon, for Henry had not learned the gentle art of thrift.
His father would gladly have sacrificed himself for the boy's sake, but old Ambrose Nobbs, a veteran of the Boer War, had little money. His right leg had been shattered in the Battle of Majuba Hill, and, invalided home, he had taken his two motherless children, Henry and Melia, to Canada. Fortune had not smiled on him. It had been a hard fight with poverty, and Melia, a year older than Henry, was obliged, much against her father's inclination, to take a small part in a musical comedy.
Her salary was not large, but it would have sufficed if her brother had not been born with a passion for spending.
"I can't get anywhere in business without fine clothes," Henry grumbled.
Melia promptly came to the rescue. From a drawer of the ancient dresser she took a bundle of bills.
"Take these," she said to her brother. "What is mine is yours. You are welcome to every dollar."
He flushed. "I don't want to take your money, little sister."
"Don't call it mine, Henry; it belongs to the family; we three are one." Shamefacedly he took the roll of bills; and in proof that clothes make the man he invested in a new suit, and gained a position in Turner's Investment and Insurance office.
The next step was to fall in love with pretty Alice Davis, Mr. Turner's private secretary. He wanted to marry Alice right away, but prudence told him that without some reserve capital matrimony would be an unwise venture.
"Several thousand dollars pass through my hands every week," he told himself. "Why not help myself while the helping is good? I can cover it up and recoup later."
Action followed the thought, and he began a series of peculations, small at first, but gradually growing larger as he grew bolder. Stock taking was at hand, and he knew he must make good
the "losses" or But he dared not
think of the consequences of discovery, and in his despair he determined to appeal to his sister once more.
Walking home from the office he met her, but before he could voice his re