"That little cross Miss Strange wears. She calls that her talisman." "Indeed! Why that particular cross?" "It belonged to her godmother, I believe," said Harding. The old gentleman stared, and then considered a little. "Her godmother, eh? Why," he began to laugh, "her godmother--what does Barbara know about her?" "I think she said she was named after her----" "So she was." "And that her mother told her she was the most beautiful woman she ever knew----" "That's true enough. She _was_ beautiful, and clever, and accomplished, no doubt about that. One ought to speak kindly of the dead, they say. Well, she was beautiful, and if ever there was a selfish, heartless coquette----" "Hey!" said Reynold, opening his eyes. "Is that speaking kindly of the dead?" "Very kindly," with emphasis. "But Miss Strange's mother----" "Well, I should think she must have begun to find her friend out before she died. I don't know, though; Mrs. Strange isn't over wise, she may contrive to believe in her still. I wonder what Strange would say, if he ever said anything! So that is Barbara's talisman! Not much _virtue_ in it, anyhow; but I dare say it will do just as well. There have been some queer folks canonised before now." He ended with a chuckling little laugh. Evidently he knew enough of the earlier Barbara to see something irresistibly comic in the girl's tenderness for this little relic of the past. Harding was grimly silent. Barbara's fancy might be foolish, but since she cherished it, he hated to hear this ugly little mockery of her treasure, and he had found a half-acknowledged satisfaction in the remembrance that the little cross was a link between himself and her. Now, when she came into the room again, and Mr. Hayes compressed his lips, and glanced from the little ornament to his visitor, and then to his book again, in stealthy enjoyment of his joke, the other felt as if there were something sinister in the token. He wished Barbara would not caress it as she stood by the fire. He would have liked to throw it down and tread it under foot. There might have been some malignant influence in the air that day, for Barbara will wonder as long as she lives what made her two companions insist on talking politics at dinner. She did not like people to talk politics. She had never looked out the word in the dictionary, and perhaps she might not have objected to a lofty discussion of "the science of government, that part of ethics which consists in the regulation and government of a nation or state." She looked upon talking politics as a masculine diversion, which consisted in bandying violent assertions about Mr. Gladstone. It never led, of course, to any change of opinion, but it generally made people raise their voices, and interrupt one another, and get red in the face. As far as her opportunities of observation went, Barbara had judged pretty correctly.