nversation 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