The interview of course immediately bred the necessity for at least a dozen more; for he had to explain this thing, and qualify that, and, on reflection, would find by the next day that the explanation and qualification required a still further elucidation. Rose also, after the first conversation was over, was troubled at her own boldness, and at the things that she in her state of excitement had said; and so was only too glad to accord interviews and explanations as often as sought, and, on the whole, was in the most favorable state towards her penitent. Hence came many calls, and many conferences with Rose in the library, to Mrs. Van Astrachan’s great satisfaction, and concerning which Mr. Van Astrachan had many suppressed chuckles and knowing winks at Polly. “Now, pa, don’t you say a word,” said Mrs. Van Astrachan. “Oh, no, Polly! catch me! I see a great deal, but I say nothing,” said the good gentleman, with a jocular quiver of his portly person. “I don’t say any thing,—oh, no! by no manner of means.” Neither at present did Harry; neither do we. CHAPTER XXIV. _SENTIMENT v. SENSIBILITY._ THE poet has feelingly sung the condition of “The banquet hall deserted, Whose lights are fled, and garlands dead,” &c., and so we need not cast the daylight of minute description on the Follingsbee mansion. Charlie Ferrola, however, was summoned away at early daylight, just as the last of the revellers were dispersing, by a hurried messenger from his wife; and, a few moments after he entered his house, he was standing beside his dying baby,—the little fellow whom we have seen brought down on Mrs. Ferrola’s arm, to greet the call of Mrs. Follingsbee. It is an awful thing for people of the flimsy, vain, pain-shunning, pleasure-seeking character of Charlie Ferrola, to be taken at times, as such people will be, in the grip of an inexorable power, and held face to face with the sternest, the most awful, the most frightful realities of life. Charlie Ferrola was one of those whose softness and pitifulness, like that of sentimentalists generally, was only one form of intense selfishness. The sight of suffering pained him; and his first impulse was to get out of the way of it. Suffering that he did not see was nothing to him; and, if his wife or children were in any trouble, he would have liked very well to have known nothing about it. But here he was, by the bedside of this little creature, dying in the agonies of slow suffocation, rolling up its dark, imploring eyes, and lifting its poor little helpless hands; and Charlie Ferrola broke out into the most violent and extravagant demonstrations of grief. The pale, firm little woman, who had watched all night, and in whose tranquil face a light as if from heaven was beaming, had to assume the care of him, in addition to that of her dying child. He was another helpless burden on her hands.