"Yes," answered Madam Lebrenn. "Your son's place is at your side."
"Oh, thank you, mother!" cried the young man, joyously embracing his mother, who clasped him to her breast.
"Look at him, father," said Velleda to the merchant with a smile and nodding toward Sacrovir, "he looks as happy as if he were graduated."
"But tell me, my friend," asked Madam Lebrenn, addressing the merchant, "will the barricade, on which you and my son are to fight, be near our place? on this street?"
"It will be at our very door," answered Lebrenn. "Agreed?"
"All the better!" exclaimed Madam Lebrenn. "We shall be there—near you."
"Mother," interjected Velleda, "should we not prepare lint to-night, and bandages? There will be many wounded."
"I was thinking of that, my child. Our shop will serve as field-hospital."
"Oh, mother! Sister!" cried the young man. "We are to fight—and under your very eyes—for liberty! How that will inspire us! Alas," he added after a moment's reflection, "why should this be, this fratricidal duel?"
"It is a sad fact, my boy," answered Lebrenn with a sigh. "Oh, may the blood shed in such a strife fall upon the heads of those who compel the people to take up arms for their rights—as we shall have to do to-morrow—as our fathers have done in almost every century of our history!"