t portrait of the father of this country, handed down to the mother
of your children, and dare draw your sword to destroy his work?"

"I've tried to put him in my place and ask what he would do--"

He stopped suddenly.

"What would Washington do if he stood in my place to-day?"

"My dear brother!"

"Remember now that you are appealing to me as my sister. Did Washington
allow the ties of blood to swerve him from his duty? His own mother was
a loyal subject of the King of Great Britain and died so--"

"Washington led an army of patriots in a sacred cause," she interrupted.

"Surely. But he won his first victories as a soldier fighting the
French, under the British flag. He denounced that flag, joined with the
French and forced Cornwallis to surrender to the armies of France and
the Colonies of America. He was equally right when he fought under the
British flag against the French, and when he fought with Lafayette and
Rochambeau and won our independence. Each time he fought for his rights
under law. Each time with mind and conscience clear, he answered the
call of duty. The man who does that is always right, my sister, no
matter what flag flies above him!"

"Oh, Robert, there is but one flag--the flag of Washington, and your
father, Henry Lee--"

The brother broke in quickly.

"And yet, the first blood in this conflict was drawn by a man who cursed
that flag, who again and again defied its authority, and gloried in the
fact that he had trampled it beneath his feet. The North has proclaimed
him a Saint. Their soldiers are now marching on the South singing a song
of glory to John Brown and all for which he stood. What would Washington
do if he were living, and these men were marching to invade Virginia,
put his home at Mount Vernon to the torch, and place pikes in the hands
of his slaves--"

Lee searched his sister's eyes and drove his question home.

"What would he do?"

The woman was too downright in her honesty to quibble or fence. She
couldn't answer. She flushed and hesitated.

"I don't know--I don't know. I only know," she hastened to add, "that he
couldn't be a traitor."

"Even so. Who is the traitor, my dear? The man who defies the
Constitution and the laws of the Union? Or the man who defends the law
and the rights of his fathers under it?"

Again she couldn't answer. She would not acknowledge defeat. She simply
refused to face such a problem. It led the wrong way. With quick wit
she changed her