She tells me that the Key relics have all been taken to the Betsy Ross house in Philadelphia.  What they were she does not know, for they were all packed in boxes when she first came to the Key mansion.  The only object left from the possessions of the man who made that old dwelling a shrine upon which Americans of to-day ought to place offerings of patriotism is an old frame in a small room at the end of the hall.  On the bottom of the frame is printed in large black letters the name, Francis Scott Key.  Some jagged fragments within the frame indicate that something, either picture or flag, has been hastily and carelessly removed.

Finding no relic of the man whose life once glorified the now dark and gloomy house, I hold with the greater tenacity the mental picture I have of the old flag I used to see in the National Museum.  Faded, discolored, and tattered, it is yet the most glorious piece of bunting our country owns to-day—­the flag that floated over Fort McHenry through the fiery storm of that night of anxious vigil in which our national anthem was born.

In this old house on Bridge Street Francis Scott Key lived when he was Attorney for the District of Columbia, and in a small brick office adjoining his home he did the work that placed him in the front rank of the American bar.

St. John’s Episcopal Church, not far away, where he was vestryman, has a tablet to the memory of Reverend Johannes I. Sayrs, a former rector, on which is an inscription by Key.  In Christ Church is a memorial window dedicated to Francis Scott Key.

“It is a pity that the old house is to be sold,” said a resident of Georgetown.

“Is it to be sold?” I asked.  For a long time this fate has been hovering over the old Key home, but I had hoped, even when there was no hope.

“Yes,” was the reply.  “The ground is wanted for business buildings.”

“A pity?” I said.  “It is more than a pity; it is a national shame.”  Is there not patriotism enough in our land to keep that shrine sacred to historic memory?

It was from this house that Key set out September 4, 1814, to negotiate for the release of Dr. Beanes, one of his friends, who, after having most kindly cared for British soldiers when wounded and helpless, was arrested and taken to the British fleet as a prisoner in revenge for his having sent away from his door-yard some intoxicated English soldiers who were creating disorder and confusion.  Key, in company with Colonel John S. Skinner, United States Agent for Parole of Prisoners, arrived at Fort McHenry, on Whetstone Point, in time to witness the effort of General Ross to make good his boast that he “did not care if it rained militia, he would take Baltimore and make it his winter headquarters.”