At any rate, he proceeded straight to Alice Rose's, as soon as he had finished his interview with his employers.
Both Hester and Coulson had given him their welcome home in the shop, which they had, however, left an hour or two before him.
Yet they gave him a fresh greeting, almost one in which surprise was blended, when he came to his lodgings.

Even Alice seemed gratified by his spending this first evening with them, as if she had thought it might have been otherwise.

Weary though he was, he exerted himself to talk and to relate what he had done and seen in London, as far as he could without breaking confidence with his employers.
It was something to see the pleasure he gave to his auditors, although there were several mixed feelings in their minds to produce the expression of it which gratified him.

Coulson was sorry for his former ungenerous reception of the news that Philip was going to London; Hester and her mother each secretly began to feel as if this evening was like more happy evenings of old, before the Robsons came to Haytersbank Farm; and who knows what faint delicious hopes this resemblance may not have suggested?
While Philip, restless and excited, feeling that he could not sleep, was glad to pass away the waking hours that must intervene before to-morrow night, at times, he tried to make them talk of what had happened in Monkshaven during his absence, but all had gone on in an eventless manner, as far as he could gather; if they knew of anything affecting the Robsons, they avoided speaking of it to him; and, indeed, how little likely were they ever to have heard their names while he was away?
.