The Jailer's Little Son by L.L. Weedon — Read

THE little child was quivering all over. Hidden behind the arras of the stately room where her sad-faced mother sat talking with sympathising friends, little Patricia was listening with eager ears to the earnest talk of the elders. The child knew that her father was in prison -- in the big prison which they could almost see from the windows of the house they had come to live in to be near him. A knight faithful to his King in the dreadful war only just ended, he was lying in prison, and every day they feared to hear that his life had been made forfeit. Every night little Patricia's pillow was wetted by her tears; every night and morning she added to her customary childish prayers a petition for her dear father's liberation. But she knew he was in the hands of stern political and Puritan foes, and that her mother's heart was very sore and heavy, and that the friends who came and went, and sought to comfort them, feared the worst themselves.

But now her eyes were shining with excitement. Her little heart was beating high with a new hope and purpose. When the door had closed upon the last of the visitors, the little one came out from her place of concealment, and, approaching her mother, she said: