Read Miss Grimsleys Oxford Career for Free Online Page A

of place and much younger than eighteen.
    “Do you come up here to commune with nature, sir?” she asked.
    He shook his head. “I come here to walk off my letters from home.”
    She thought of her own home and found this reasonable. “I expect I would like to do the same thing,” she said. “Do your parents smother you too and worry and prose on and on?”
    He gave a shout of laughter, grabbed her hand, and kissed it, bowing again. “Are you a Sybil, or perhaps a Cassandra, to divine this? I would not have thought there were other parents in all of England like my mother, but perhaps I was wrong. James Gatewood at your service, miss.”
    She smiled and withdrew her hand from his. “I am Ellen Grimsley, sir.”
    “Ellen?” he asked. “Prosaic name, but lovely.”
    “I do not mind that it is ordinary,” she replied, twinkling her eyes at him for no reason that she could discern. “It could have been much worse.” She hesitated, looking at the student. Something about his open countenance seemed to invite confidence. “It could have been Zephyr.”
    “Zephyr?” he asked in amusement. “Oh, surely not!”
    “Zephyr indeed. It happens that a horse named Zephyr won at Newmarket the day I was born. My papa is horse mad, sir.” She sighed, and then grinned as he laughed. “But Mama, who seldom prevails, prevailed from her bed of confinement, for which I am grateful.”
    He nodded in perfect understanding. “As it is, I suppose now you have brothers who tease you and call you Nellie, but that must be preferable to Zeph.”
    “Indeed, it must be,” she agreed. She looked around at the carriage and made a motion to leave.
    He grabbed up his books by the rock, falling in step with her as she retraced her way to the carriage below. She glanced at his books, noting North's
Treatise on Government
, and a copy of Paine's
The Crisis
.
    He followed her glance. “I should be studying, but it looked like a fine afternoon.”
    “And you are ‘a summer soldier and a sunshine patriot,’ when the weather is mellow?” she teased.
    He raised one eyebrow. “You are a spy, sent by my don,” he teased in turn, “come to find out why I am not buried in scholarship.”
    She shook her head. “I am no spy, and that's all I know of Thomas Paine,” she confessed. “I found the pamphlet at a church rumble sale, but Mama snatched it away and told me it was wicked.”
    “And well she did, Miss Grimsley,” he said with a smile. “You might have attempted a nursery room revolt. But wicked? No.”
    “You're teasing me,” she observed. “Sir, I do not joke about books.”
    “
Touché
. Nor do I, Miss Grimsley,” he replied. “Perhaps I can loan you my copy. Are you staying in town?”
    She nodded. “I will be matriculating at Miss Digman's Select Female Academy.”
    “I never heard the word
matriculation
used in the same breath as Miss Dignam's,” he said. “I had thought the most strenuous course there to be French knots.”
    “I am sure it is not so,” she said quickly. “I have great plans.” She was silent a moment. “I have greater plans than my brother, and he is a student here … under duress.”
    “That happens to some,” he replied. “And what is this scholar's name?”
    “It is Gordon, and he is in his first year at University College,” she replied. “He does not know how lucky he is.”
    “They seldom do,” Gatewood murmured. He was silent then as they continued down the hill together.
    As they came closer to the carriage, Ellen stopped in confusion. “Excuse me, sir, for being so forward. I really shouldn't be talking with strangers.”
    “Neither should I,” he said and twinkled his eyes at her. “But as I did not think you would do me any harm, I chanced it. Good day, Miss Ellen Grimsley. I trust you will find Oxford to your liking.”
    She nodded and smiled up at him. “I am sure that I shall.” He continued toward the main road. Ellen looked at the post chaise and called to him.
    He