"Hoity, toity!" said the man called Tom; "as we know, indeed. If Mr. Franks, my excellent friend and colleague," he made an exaggerated bow to his companion, "considers the bauble old-fashioned and worthless, it certainly is worthless and old-fashioned." "It is certainly nothing of the kind," Christina cried, anger driving away the last semblance of nervousness. "I should be much obliged if you would tell me at once how much you can advance me upon it. If you are unable to give me anything, I can take it elsewhere." As she spoke, she looked straight into the smiling, insolent faces before her, her own grown rigid and proud; and in spite of her shabby clothing and obvious poverty, she suddenly assumed a look of imperial dignity, which had an instantaneous effect upon her tormentors. "Come, come, miss; don't talk like that," the man called Franks said sheepishly; "we were just having a bit of fun over it, that's all. And I'm sure we'll give you the best we can for the pendant." Christina's threat of taking the jewel elsewhere, had brought the shopmen sharply to their senses, for it had needed no more than a cursory glance, to show them both that the jewel the girl had brought them was of no small value, and they were uncomfortably aware that the vials of their master's wrath would be emptied upon their heads, if they allowed such an article to be disposed of in another establishment. "It is a very pretty piece of work," the first man said, taking the pendant in his hand, and looking over it with a fine assumption of carelessness; "family initials, I suppose, in this twisted monogram?" "I suppose so. I cannot give you any history of the pendant; I don't know its history myself. It came to me from my mother." Christina gave this piece of gratuitous information, feeling uneasily that it might be supposed she had stolen the beautiful piece of jewellery; and, with the thought, all the old associations that were interwoven with it swept into her mind, and almost choked further utterance. "A.V.C.," the young man said slowly, deciphering the monogram, which, in exquisitely-chased gold, surmounted the pendant itself. This latter consisted of an emerald, remarkably vivid in colour, and set in the same finely-chased gold as that which formed the monogram. "A.V.C. would have been some ancestor of yours, no doubt?" he asked jocularly, and with another wink at his companion. "I don't know," Christina repeated; "as I tell you, I know nothing of the jewel's history. I believe it to be a genuine emerald, and I am sure it is very valuable." Both men simultaneously shrugged their shoulders and laughed, odious, deprecating laughs.