Page:Love Insurance - Earl Biggers (1914).djvu/373

342 girl wearily. "All the rest of my life I shall have to try and live up to the nobility."

She sighed.

"To think," remarked the duchess, busy over a great bowl of flowers, "that to-morrow night this time little Cynthia will be Lady Harrowby. I suppose you'll go to Rakedale Hall for part of the year at least?"

"I suppose so."

"I, too, have had my Rakedale Hall. Formal, Cynthia dear, formal. Nothing but silly little hunts, silly little shoots—American men would die there. As for American women—nothing ever happens—the hedges bloom in neat little rows—the trees blossom—they're bare again— Cynthia, sometimes I've been in a state where I'd give ten years of my life just to hear the rattle of an elevated train!"

She stood looking down at the girl, an all too evident pity in her eyes.

"It isn't all it might be, I fancy—marrying into the peerage," Cynthia said.

"My dear," replied the duchess, "I've nearly