In “Peggy Owen,” the preceding book of the series, the heroine, a little Quaker maid, lives across from the State House in Philadelphia. By reason of this she becomes much interested in the movements of the Continental Congress, and when her father, in spite of his religion, takes up arms for the Whigs she too becomes an ardent patriot. While David Owen is with the army before Boston, Peggy and her mother find a kinsman of his—William Owen, a colonel in the English army—a prisoner in the city’s new jail.

They succeed in having him released on parole, and take him into their home, where he requites their kindness by selfishness and arrogance, even killing Peggy’s pet dog, Pilot. He is exchanged at length, but before leaving he brings one James Molesworth to the house, claiming that he does not like to leave them unprotected. This man Peggy discovers to be a spy.

Upon the advance of the British toward Philadelphia Peggy and her mother go to their farm on the banks of the Wissahickon. Here they are almost denuded of supplies by foragers, one party of which is headed by their own kinsman, Colonel Owen. American troopers arrive, and a sharp skirmish takes place, in which Colonel Owen is wounded. While caring for him word is received that David Owen is a prisoner in Philadelphia, and ill of a fever. General Howe proposes to have him exchanged for one Thomas Shale, and Peggy rides to Valley Forge to secure the consent of General Washington. Owing to the fact that the man is a spy and a deserter the exchange cannot take place, and, in a blaze of anger at finding her cousin so comfortable while her own father lies ill, Peggy denounces him, and forces him to accede to the proposal that he be exchanged for her father. The book closes with the evacuation of Philadelphia by the British.

The present volume shows the Owens at Washington’s camp in northern New Jersey. Peggy’s further adventures are continued in “Peggy Owen at Yorktown” and “Peggy Owen and Liberty.”