ere, and either you give up these things or we part company."

"Nay, Alice, doan't be narrow-minded. I suppose," he added bitterly,
"that you are beginning to look higher than me, that you are thinking
o' one of the manufacturers. I hear that Harry Briarfield was up at
your house to supper the other night."

They had by this time left the Liverpool Road and had entered Scott's
Park, which during the last few years had become a rendezvous for the
people of the town, especially on Sunday afternoons.

"You know," went on the girl, "that it made no difference to me when
people told me that I was choosing a weaver. I didn't think about it,
I only thought of you. But, Tom, I shall never marry any one who--who
can find his pleasure in such places as the Thorn and Thistle, and who
sneers at Sunday School."

"You mean," said Tom, rather angrily, "that if you continue to keep
company with me I must feed on your religious lolly-pops."

An angry flush mounted the girl's cheek, but she continued to speak
quietly.

"Tom," she said, "will you answer me truly? Do you find anything at
the Thorn and Thistle better than you found in the young men's class?
You sneer at religion, but religion does no one any harm; rather it
always does good; anyhow, it's everything to me, and you have to make
your choice."

Tom looked at her steadily. He knew what she meant, knew too that the
time had come when he would have to make his choice. At that moment he
saw what Polly Powell meant to his life, saw, too, that if he followed
the road in which he had been walking during the last few months he
would have to give up Alice Lister. He saw more than this, for at that
moment Polly Powell's blandishments had no effect on him. She appeared
to him in her true light--a coarse, vulgar girl.

"You don't care about me like you did," he said angrily. "You are
getting tired of me."

"If that were true I should not speak to you in this way," and her
voice became tremulous. "But I am not going to throw away my life,
Tom; there's something more in life than--than love."

"What?" he asked.

"Duty, God," was the reply.

Tom again laughed uneasily. Alice Lister lived in a different world
from that in which Polly Powell lived; they breathed a different
atmosphere; they spoke a different language. Yes, he would have to
make his choice.

"I would rather have you than forty Polly Powells," he burst out, "I
would really, Alice, but--but----"

"T