Lancashire folks are not slow in speaking their minds, and they have no false delicacy about telling people their opinion of them.
"Well," said Tom quietly, "I fly higher game than you, Emily Bilson, anyhow. I have only just got to hold up my finger to the whole lot on you, and you'd come after me. But I'm noan going to do it; I've got too much respect for myself."
Almost as if by arrangement the girls separated, and Tom found himself walking up Liverpool Road by the side of Alice Lister. Neither of them spoke for some minutes. Tom didn't know what to say, while Alice was evidently thinking deeply.
"Have you been to the Young Men's Class this afternoon," she asked presently.
"Nay."
"Why?" asked the girl, looking at him steadily.
"It's noan in my line," replied Tom. "That kind of thing'll do for kids, but when people get grown up they want something better."
"Better and cleverer people than you, Tom, don't give it up," replied the girl.
Tom continued to walk by Alice's side, looking rather sulky.
He and Alice had begun to walk out together a little more than a year before, much to the surprise of their mutual friends. For Alice was not only better educated than Tom, but she moved in rather a better circle. Alice's father was one who, beginning life as a weaver, had by steady perseverance and good common sense become a small manufacturer. He was anything but a rich man, but he was what the people called "Doin' vary weel"—one who with good luck would in about ten years' time "addle a tidy bit of brass." Alice was his only daughter. He had never allowed her to go to the mill, but had sent her to a fairly good school until she was sixteen years of age, since which time she had stayed at home with her mother, and assisted her in the house work. Alice had continued her education, however. She had a natural gift for music and possessed a fine contralto voice. She had quite a local reputation as a pianist and was constantly in demand to sing at concerts. She was more than ordinarily intelligent too, and was a lover of good books. Added to this she attended classes in the town for French and German; and had on more than one occasion been invited to the houses of big manufacturers. That was why people wondered at her walking out with Tom Pollard. He, although looked upon as a sharp lad, was not, as was generally agreed, "up to Alice's mark."