Read Miss Grimsleys Oxford Career for Free Online

it wound around the university town.
    “It is only when I travel this road behind loads of potatoes, onions, and pigs that I wonder why anyone saw fit to establish a university in this place,” Aunt Shreve grumbled. “If this is the center of the universe, then I am Marie Antoinette, head and all!”
    Aunt Shreve was poised to say more in the same vein as they inched along, but the look on her niece's face stopped her complaints. She tapped on the glass and rolled it down as the post chaise stopped.
    “Mind that you pause and pull off when you reach the top of this hill, Coachman,” she ordered.
    They continued in silence broken only by the squawk of geese in the cart ahead. In a few minutes, the carriage pulled out of the line of traffic and stopped.
    “Get out and stretch yourself,” Aunt Shreve suggested “And do go to the top of that rise.”
    “You needn't let me slow you down,” Ellen protested. “Surely the view can wait.”
    “No, it cannot,” Aunt Shreve insisted. She motioned to the carriage door, where the post boy stood to open it.
    Ellen stepped out, grateful—even though she had objected—for the chance to walk about for a moment. She walked to the top of the gently sloping rise, looked toward the east, and loved her aunt all the more.
    The sun was going down over Oxford, throwing streams of molten fire upon honey-colored walls and spires. Ellen held her breath at the sight and then let it out slowly, There was Great Tom, and the spires of Magdalen, grace notes to the elegant architectural humor of the Radcliffe Camera, and behind it, the Bodleian Library. The river flowed under bridges as inspired as the buildings that lined it on both sides.
    From her elevation, Ellen gazed, hand to eyes, into college quadrangles where the grass was still green, protected by the warmth of centuries-old stone. She clapped her hands in delight. Oxford was a city the color of honey, and a veritable honeycomb itself of colleges, quadrangles, and churches.
    The sky turned lavender as she watched and then a more somber purple.
We will have rain tonight
, she thought,
but it will be special rain because it falls upon Oxford
.
    “Excuse me, miss, if I appear forward, but are you in some trouble with your post chaise?”
    Ellen whirled around. Papers in hand, a man sat upon a rock near the crest of the hill where she stood. She had not noticed him in his black student's robe because he blended in so well with the shadows that were lengthening across the copse.
    “Oh, no, sir. We are fine,” she said, putting her hands behind her back as though she had been caught pilfering a candy jar. “My aunt merely wanted me to have a look at the city before we drove in.”
    The man got to his feet. He was taller even than the tallest Grimsley. His hair was ordinary brown and untidy, and the wind was picking it up and tousling it further. Ellen felt the need to put her hand to her bonnet.
    The breeze caught the student's gown and it billowed about him, making him appear larger yet. The wind tugged at the papers in his hand. As she watched, he tore them up and held them in both palms to the wind like an offering. The scraps swirled up and out of sight.
    “Good riddance,” he said and came closer.
    He had an elegant face, at odds with the untidiness of his hair, with high cheekbones, a straight nose, and eyes as dark as his gown, She noticed that his ears lay nicely flat against his head, and she smiled as she thought of Thomas Cornwell.
    “I amuse you?” he asked, giving her a little nod that passed for a bow.
    “No, it is someone else. You have excellent ears, sir,” she said and then put her hand to her mouth. “I mean, I was thinking of someone who is not so blessed. Oh, dear, that was a strange thing to say!”
    He laughed and tossed away the remaining scraps of paper that still rested in his palm. He gave her a real bow, and he was more graceful than she would have thought, considering his height. Suddenly she felt out