CHAPTER 8.
The Dillings returned to Ottawa refreshed in body and spirit. Their summer in Pinto Plains had been a prolonged triumph and its effect, beneficial. Not only had they been welcomed with affectionate deference, entertained sedulously, and permitted to depart with honest regret and a dash of frank envy, but they had been reclaimed by that splendid illusion from which six months in the Capital had freed them.
By the time they turned their faces eastward, they were quite prepared to attribute their disheartening experiences of the previous winter to hyper-sensitiveness—the difficulty generally felt in accommodating oneself to a new environment.
It was during the last stages of the journey that uneasiness returned, and expressed itself in remarks such as,
“Just think . . . this time last year we were strangers, and now, it seems almost like coming home!” or
“It’s nice to know that we have friends here, isn’t it? We won’t be so lonely, this year, will we?”
Each in a characteristic way tried to capture a sense of confidence, a glow of happiness, and to feel that being no longer aliens, Ottawa would be different—that is, as each would like to find it.
Marjorie succeeded better than her husband.
“It’s awfully exciting, isn’t it?” she cried, as the train panted along beside the canal, and familiar landmarks unfolded before her.
Across the muddy water where barges and the Rideau Royal Pair were tied up for the winter, she could see the Driveway, spotted with children and women casually attendant upon perambulators. The Pavilion at Somerset Street, where she used to sit with her little brood, looked bleak and uninviting, but she was glad to see it, just the same. Two lovers occupied a bench in front of the Collegiate, and kissed shamelessly as the train moved past. Marjorie’s heart warmed to them, not that she approved of kissing in public places, but because there was something human about them; they added weight to her theory that Ottawa was not so forbidding and formidable, after all.