Not My Will and The Light in My Window by Francena H. Arnold Read Free Book Online

asked in a low tone.
    “So much it hurts.”
    “God willing, dear,” he said with a kiss, “I’ll keep you that way.”
    * * *
    Rain was falling in sheets on the shingle roof. Eleanor and Chad were on the floor before the big bookcases, looking through old books covered with the dust of years.
    “Listen to this, Eleanor,” Chad said suddenly. “When I was in high school, we studied
Lady of the Lake,
and last night when you stood for a moment on the hill above the lake, I thought of that, and I just now found this description of Ellen—
    “With head upraised and look intent
And eye and ear attentive bent,
And locks flung back and lips apart
Like monument of Grecian art,
In listening mood she seemed to stand
The guardian Naiad of the strand.
    “It fit you so well that I decided you were Ellen, my Lady of the Lake.”
    “I’m yours, all right,” she said, smoothing the golden waves of hair back from his brow. “But I was never called a Naiad before.”
    “I’m glad of that. No one else should have the right. But let’s see what else Scott says about you.
    “And ne’er did Grecian chisel trace
A nymph, a naiad or a grace
Of fairer form or lovelier face.
    “Hm, he meant you, sure enough. He was just born a century or so too soon. He was a mystic and had a vision of futurity and saw you in it.”
    She laughed at his nonsense, and he continued to read.
    “A chieftain’s daughter seemed the maid
Her satin snood, her silken plaid
Her golden brooch such birth betrayed.
And seldom was a snood amid
(What is a snood, anyway?)

Such wild luxuriant ringlets hid.
(Yours are wild when you’ve been up on
the hill in a wind.)

Whose glossy black—
    “Hm, that doesn’t fit. I’ll have to doctor it a bit—‘raven’s wing’—no, it has to be altered. I’m not very good at poetry—but wait a minute. Ah, here it is:
    “Whose shining locks to shame might bring
The plumage of the cardinal’s wing.”
    Eleanor gave him a push that tumbled him over backward as she cried, “I am
not
red-headed.”
    “Not red-headed? Well, what are you then?”
    “Just … just …
almost
red-headed,” she admitted with a laugh. “And if I’m Ellen of the Lake, who are you? Fitz James?”
    “Not on your life. I’m Malcolm, the guy who got the lady. Don’t you remember the end? Poor Malcolm was chained to Ellen for life by the king’s necklace! And if
his
Ellen were half as sweet as mine, he didn’t want to ever be unchained. Ho-hum, it’s almost eleven o’clock. Come on, Almost-Red-Head, let’s call it a day.”
    From that night on, Chad seldom called her anything but Ellen, and when they went back to the city, the little volume of Scott went with him.

E leanor had thought that they would spend the summer at the university, going to the lake for the short vacation between terms. But in early May, Professor Nichols began to talk of a trip East to do some work with a Dr. Kinsolving at the Xenia Laboratories.
    “And of course I want you to go with me, Miss Eleanor,” he informed her. “You are my second pair of eyes, and in that way you can keep on with the illustrations you are preparing for the textbook.”
    For the first time Eleanor began to question the advisability of her impulsive marriage to Chad. She was eager to go East with the Professor and take advantage of the opportunity of working in the wonderful Xenia Laboratories, but how could she leave Chad? Every time she saw him he was dearer, and she was sure he would not want her to leave him for the summer. She ponderedlong over this weighty problem, but it was solved for her in an unexpected way.
    One evening when Eleanor met Chad for dinner, she immediately perceived that he was troubled. As they sat at the table, he handed her a letter from home. She read—
    Dear Son:
    I would rather do almost anything than write this letter to you. Your schooling has already been much delayed, and I had hoped you could go on with no further interruptions. I know you had