th their Eletto.

The rebels sought and found quarters in the citizens' houses, slept in
their beds, eat from their dishes, and drank their wine-cellars empty.
Pillage was permitted for three days. On the fifth discipline was
restored, the quartermaster's department organized, and the citizens
were permitted to assemble at the guild-hall, pursue their trades and
business, follow the pursuits to which they had been accustomed. The
property they had saved was declared unassailable; besides, robbery had
ceased to be very remunerative.

The Eletto was at liberty to choose his own quarters, and there was no
lack of stately dwellings in Aalst. Ulrich might have been tempted to
occupy the palace of Baron de Hierges, but passed it by, selecting as
a home for his mother and himself a pretty little house on the
market-place, which reminded him of his father's smithy. The
bow-windowed room, with the view of the belfry and the stately
guildhall, was pleasantly fitted up for his mother, and the city
gardeners received orders to send the finest house-plants to his
residence. Soon the sitting-room, adorned with flowers and enlivened by
singing-birds, looked far handsomer and more cosy than the nest of which
he had dreamed. A little white dog, exactly like the one Florette had
possessed in the smithy, was also procured, and when in the evening the
warm summer air floated into the open windows, and Ulrich sat alone
with Florette, recalling memories of the past, or making plans for the
future, it seemed as if a new spring had come to his soul. The citizens'
distress did not trouble him. They were the losing party in the grim
game of war, enemies--rebels. Among his own men he saw nothing but
joyous faces; he exercised the power--they obeyed.

Zorrillo bore him ill-will, Ulrich read it in his eyes; but he made him
a captain, and the man performed his duty as quartermaster in the most
exemplary manner. Florette wished to tell him that the Eletto was her
son, but the latter begged her to wait till his power was more firmly
established, and how could she refuse her darling anything? She had
grieved deeply, very deeply, but this mood soon passed away, and now she
could be happy in Ulrich's society, and forget sorrow and heartache.

What joy it was to have him back, to be loved by him! Where was there
a more affectionate son, a pleasanter home than hers? The velvet and
brocade dresses belonging to the Baroness de Hierges had fallen to the
E