Foster's own companions, however, had not been altogether taken by surprise. For some weeks past he had been absent from his club, and from the public-house, and when questioned on the subject had given short and evasive answers. A change had been coming over him--that was clear enough; but whence it originated even those who had been the most intimate with him were at a loss to conjecture. And now on the morning after the meeting, when he walked into the mill-yard, while some looked on him with the sort of wonder with which a crowd would gape at some strange animal, the like of which they had neither seen nor heard of before, others began to assail him with gibes and taunts and coarse would-be witticisms. But Foster bore it all unmoved, never uttering a word in reply, but going on steadily with his work. As the men, however, were about to leave for their homes, after the mill had loosed, a sneering, sour-looking fellow, one Enos Wilkinson, who had gathered a little crowd about him, and was watching for Foster, whose work detained him a little later than the ordinary hands, stepped across his path, and raising his voice, cried, "Come now, Saint Foster, you'll be bringing out a nice little book about your conversion, to edify us poor sinners who are still in heathen darkness. When do you mean to favour us with the first edition?"--"The day after you become sober and sensible, Enos," was Foster's reply, and he walked on, leaving his persecutors unprepared with an answer. Two hours later, and Thomas Bradly might be seen standing outside Foster's house, with a happy smile on his face, and a short whispered conversation going on between two parts of himself. "Now, then, Thomas, you're in for it." "Ay, to be sure; and in for a good thing too." "What'll Will Foster say? And what'll _you_ say, Thomas?" "Ah! Well, all that's best left in the Lord's hands." After this a loud, decided knock on Thomas's part, and then the cautious tread of a woman inside. "All right, missus; it's only me, Thomas Bradly." No answer for a minute, and then the heavier tread of a man. Foster himself opened the door, and holding out his hand, said,-- "Come in, Thomas. You're just the man I've been wanting to see." "And you're just the man I'm right glad to hear say so," was the other's reply.