, they drag him to the house--the
little room--where all had been so peaceful but a few minutes before.

The culprit is brought face to face with Washington, who asks him what
harm he has ever suffered from his fellow countrymen that he should turn
against them thus. Blake hangs his head and owns his willingness to die.
His eyes rest on the form extended on the floor, and he shudders; but his
features undergo an almost joyous change, for the figure lifts itself,
and in a faint voice calls, "Father!" The young man lives. With a cry of
delight both father and sister raise him in their arms. "You are not yet
prepared to die," says Washington to the captive. "I will put you under
guard until you are wanted. Take him into custody, my dear young lady,
and try to make an American of him. See, it is one o'clock, and this is
Christmas morning. May all be happy here. Come." And beckoning to his men
he rides away, though Blake and his affianced would have gone on their
knees before him. Revulsion of feeling, love, thankfulness and a latent
patriotism wrought a quick change in Blake. When young Kuch recovered
Blake joined his regiment, and no soldier served the flag more honorably.

LORD PERCY'S DREAM

Leaving the dissipations of the English court, Lord Percy came to America
to share the fortunes of his brethren in the contest then raging on our
soil. His father had charged him with the delivery of a certain package
to an Indian woman, should he meet her in his rambles through the western
wilds, and, without inquiring into the nature of the gift
or its occasion, he accepted the trust. At the battle of the
Brandywine--strangely foretold by Quaker prophecy forty years before--he
was detailed by Cornwallis to drive the colonial troops out of a
graveyard where they had intrenched themselves, and though he set upon
this errand with the enthusiasm of youth, his cheek paled as he drew near
the spot where the enemy was waiting.

It was not that he had actual physical fear of the onset: he had dreamed
a dream a few nights before, the purport of which he had hinted to his
comrades, and as he rode into the clearing at the top of Osborn's Hill he
drew rein and exclaimed, "My dream! Yonder is the graveyard. I am fated
to die there." Giving a few of his effects to his brother officers, and
charging one of them to take a message of love to his betrothed in
England, he set his lips and rode forward.

His cavalry bound toward the scene of