In search of Arcady Author:Nina Wilcox Putnam Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: m LADY HILLIARY THINKS: "I TOLD YOU SO!" CY HYLLIARY reached for another cigarette, fitted it into her amber mouthpiece, lit it, and looked at her sister j... more »udicially. "Adele, my dear," she remarked, "you are a very good-looking woman for your age. How you have managed to preserve so much of your beauty through a score or more seasons in this glaring, dusty, noisy New York is a miracle! For of all the exhausting, nerve-wrecking " "Don't speak so disparagingly of your native city, Janet," interrupted Mrs. Chichester. "Remember you were born here; you are a native, after all. Not that any one would accuse you of it, though," she added; "you're more English now than your husband." " I thought so, too — almost," said Lady Hylliary softly, "until I sailed into the harbour at noon yesterday and passed that absurd old Statue of Liberty; then I did not feel so convinced of my extradition. You may laugh at me, my dear, if you will; but positively the sight of that hideous piece of ironmongery made me cry! Perfect rot, of course, such sentimentality at my years and with my principles; but I suppose I have a bit of patriotism in me somewhere— tucked away where I'd forgotten it." "It's such a long, long time since you were here last!" said Mrs. Chichester. "It must be twenty years! How strange everything must look to you." "More than twenty years!" replied Lady Hylliary. "We went to India just before Barbara was born, don't you remember? And she is — how old? " "Twenty-two," said Barbara's mother. "This is her second season." But Lady Hylliary's thoughts had been switched into another channel for the instant. "Fifteen years of India!" she dreamed, blowing thin wreaths of blue smoke which settled like halos around her trim blond head. "Fearfully long time; but amusi...« less