some cool water from the well, and as they drank it they remembered the
men in the various prisons and their pitiful need of water at all times.

"They are the true heroes," said Agnes; "tortured by heat and by cold,
by cruel hunger and more cruel thirst, in all extremities of pain and
sorrow, they are paying their life blood, drop by drop, like coin, for
our freedom."

"And when our freedom is won," answered Harry, "we will give to the dead
their due. They, too, have saved us."

"Do you think, Harry, this French alliance is going to end the war?"

"Those who know best say it will. But these Frenchmen are giving
Washington no end of trouble. They are mostly military adventurers. They
worry Washington for promotion and for increase of pay; they have only
their own interest in view. They scorn our privations and simplicity,
and their demands can only be gratified at the expense of native
officers whose rights they unjustly wish to invade. Yet I am told that
without French money and French help we should have to give up the
struggle. I don't believe it. Starving and demoralized as our army is,
there are many who will never give up while Washington is alive to lead
them."

"If I was a rebel," said Maria, "I should want our freedom won by our
own hands only. The French are coming here at the last hour, and they
will get all the credit. Do you think it is for love of freedom they
help the Americans? If so, why do they not give freedom to France? She
has the most tyrannical and despotic of governments; Uncle Neil says so;
and yet she pretends to thrill with indignation because England violates
the liberties of her colonies. France had better mind her own affairs,
or, as grandmother says, she will scald herself with other people's
broth."

"God made the French, and He may understand them, I do not," answered
Harry. "Fancy the French government allowing our Declaration of
Independence to be translated and scattered broadcast all over the
country! No wonder that Lafayette smiled grimly when he heard of it; no
wonder he said that 'the principles of government we had announced
would soon be heard from in France.' He can see the results, but the

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