Page:Dorothy's spy; a story of the first "fovrth of Jvly" celebration, New York, 1776.djvu/86

Rh men, whose voices could be plainly heard from the outside, were about to make a search of the house.

"Wouldn't it be dreadful if they should take him now?" Dorothy whispered, and Sarah replied hesitatingly:

"Indeed it would; but what will happen to us when it is known that we actually hid in your attic a spy? The other girls won't speak to us, and I'm not certain but that our parents will punish us severely. Do you remember what General Washington's aide read this evening about the king's doings? That he had 'plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people,' and now we are just the same as helping his majesty in all that terrible wickedness!"

"Would you have given that poor man up to be hanged, Sarah Lamb?" Dorothy asked sternly.

"Of course I wouldn't!"

"Then don't talk as if we had been doing something wrong."

"How can I help it, Dorothy, when I think of what your father and mine will say to us? They are Sons of Liberty, and we, their children, are doing just what they say shouldn't be done."

Little Mistress Dean had thought many times since she began to converse in friendly fashion