from the accounts I have read he does not
seem to have even suspected her. He invited her to be seated, then
asked, 'Were any of your family up, Lydia, on the night when I received
company in this house?' 'No,' she replied; 'they all retired at eight
o'clock.' 'It is very strange,' he returned. 'You I know were asleep,
for I knocked at your door three times before you heard me, yet it is
certain we were betrayed. I am altogether at a loss to conceive who
could have given information to Washington of our intended attack. On
arriving near his camp, we found his cannon mounted, his troops under
arms, and so prepared at every point to receive us, that we have been
compelled to march back like a parcel of fools, without injuring our
enemy!'"

"I hope the British did not find out, before they left Philadelphia, who
had given the information to the Americans, and take vengeance on her?"
said Walter.

"No," replied his mother, "fearing that, she had begged Lieutenant Craig
to keep her secret; which he did; and so it has happened that her good
deed finds no mention in the histories of that time and is recorded only
by well authenticated tradition."

"So all the Quakers were not Tories?" remarked Walter in a satisfied yet
half inquiring tone.

"Oh, no indeed!" replied his mother, "there were ardent patriots among
them, as among people of other denominations. Nathaniel Green--after
Washington one of our best and greatest generals--was of Quaker family,
and I have heard that when his mother found he was not to be persuaded
to refrain from taking an active part in the struggle for freedom, she
said to him, 'Well, Nathaniel, if thee must fight, let me never hear of
thee having a wound in thy back!'"

"Ah, she must have been brave and patriotic," laughed Walter. "I doubt
if she was so very sorry that her son was determined to fight for the
freedom of his country."

"No," said Rosie, "I don't believe she was, and I don't see how she
could help feeling proud of him--so bright, brave, talented, and
patriotic as he showed himself to be all through the war."

"Yes," said Lulu, "and I don't think he has had half the honors he
deserved, though at West Point we saw a cannon with an inscription on it
saying it had been taken from the British army and presented by Congress
to Major-General Green as a monument of their high sense of his services
in the revolutionary war."

"Weren't the Tories very bad men, Grandma Elsie?" asked Grace.