Her Father's Son

Frances Fletcher is the daughter and only child of John Fletcher, the poor brother of wealthy William Fletcher. The two brothers have been long separated by a quarrel but William, the rich southern planter, writes in his old age to John, saying that he has heard of John's youngster and would like to adopt the "boy" as his own son to be co-heir with his only child, Betty, who is about the same age. Dying after being crushed by a tree, John Fletcher binds Frances with the promise to go to her Uncle's masquerading as a boy. Her name is changed to Francis and as a boy accompanied by "mammy" Chole she goes to the wonderful Southern home of her uncle. Francis does not come up to her uncle's expectation of what a fire-eating Southern gentleman should be, but she does make a warm friend of cousin Betty. The night of Betty's coming out ball, Francis dresses up as a girl in the crinolines of the period and Lieut. Richard Harkness, a West Pointer, believing her "Betty's girl-cousin from St Louis," falls desperately in love with her. In the midst of the gaiety a courier brings the news of the Southern States seceding. It turns friend against friend. Her Southern sympathies get Francis into many difficulties for she masquerades as a spy and deceives her lover, the Union officer, Richard Harkness. But when everything seems wrong and Francis is challenged for "the satisfaction due a gentleman" by Harkness on the field of honor appears the Southern beauty, Frances Fletcher, and learning all, Harkness wins the hand and heart of the South's fairest.