t that her
father and mother were not at all pleased, had allowed him to accompany
her home on several occasions.

"What are you going to do, Tom?" asked the girl.

"What am I going to do?" queried Tom. "I don't know that I am going to
do anything. What do you mean, Alice?"

"I mean that you must make your choice."

"Choice? What choice?"

"I should not have met you this afternoon," replied Alice Lister
quietly, "but for the fact that I want to come to an understanding. I
have not been blind, neither have I been deaf, these last few months; a
change has come over you, and--and you will have to choose."

Tom knew what she meant well enough, but he pretended to be ignorant.

"What has come over you, Alice? What do you mean? Surely," he went
on, "you are not taking any notice of what Emily Bilson said. Just as
though a lad can't speak to any lass but his own!"

"Tom," went on the girl quietly, "you know what you told me twelve
months ago; you know, too, what my father and mother said when they saw
us together; it has not been pleasant for me to listen to people's
gossip, especially when I know that most of it is true. I have been
very fond of you and I don't deny it; if I hadn't I should not have
walked out with you, but I want to tell you this--you have to make your
choice this afternoon; either you are going to give up me, or you are
going to give up the Thorn and Thistle and all it means."

"You're jealous of Polly Powell," said Tom, with an uneasy laugh.

"I'm jealous of your good name, Tom, jealous of evil influence."

"Evil influence? What evil influence?"

"Going to the Thorn and Thistle has done you a great deal of harm; it
has caused you to give up your Young Men's Class, and--and--but there,
I needn't talk any more about it. You understand what I mean. It must
be either one or the other, Tom."

"You mean that I must either give up you or Polly Powell?"

"It means more than that," replied the girl, "it means that you must
either give up me or give up going to the Thorn and Thistle. You used
to be a teetotaler, Tom."

"As though any lad's a teetotaler in these days," laughed the young
fellow. "Come now, Alice, you are not so narrow-minded as that. I am
nearly twenty-three now, and if I want a glass of beer surely I can
have it. You don't mean to say that everybody but teetotalers are
going to the bad."

"You know very well what I mean, Tom. You are not the kind of young
man you w