alone, General?" exclaimed Read.

"Yes; tired, hungry, alone, and penniless."

The fate of the patriot cause in the South seemed to lie in those
hopeless words. Mrs. Steele, the landlady, heard them, and made all
haste to prepare a bountiful supper for her late guest, who sat seeking
to dry himself before the blazing fire. As quickly as possible a smoking
hot supper was on the table before him, and as he sat enjoying it with a
craving appetite, Mrs. Steele again entered the room.

Closing the door carefully behind her, she advanced with a look of
sympathy on her face, and drew her hands from under her apron, each of
them holding a small bag of silver coin.

"Take these, general," she said. "You need them, and I can do without
them."

A look of hope beamed on Greene's face as he heard these words. With a
spirit like this in the women of the country, he felt that no man should
despair. Rising with a sudden impulse, he walked to where a portrait of
George III. hung over the fireplace, remaining from the old ante-war
time. He turned the face of this to the wall and wrote these words on
the back: "Hide thy face, George, and blush."

It is said that this portrait was still hanging in the same place not
many years ago, with Greene's writing yet legible upon it, and possibly
it may be there still. As for Mrs. Steele, she had proved herself a
patriot woman, of the type of Mrs. Motte, who furnished Marion with
arrows for the burning of her own house when it was occupied by a party
of British soldiers whom he could not dislodge. And they two were far
from alone in the list of patriot women in the South.

The incident in General Greene's career above given has become famous.
And connected with it is the skilful military movement by which he
restored the American cause in the South, which had been nearly lost by
the disastrous defeat of General Gates. This celebrated example of
strategy has often been described, but is worth telling again.

Lord Cornwallis, the most active of the British commanders in the war of
American Independence, had brought South Carolina and Georgia under his
control, and was marching north with the expectation of soon bringing
North Carolina into subjection, and following up his success with the
conquest of Virginia. This accomplished, he would have the whole South
subdued. But in some respects he reckoned without his host. He had now
such men as Greene and Morgan in his front, Marion and Sumter in