The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1874-07-17
SELECT STORY.
[From Appleton JourhAI.I
PERRY VANCE'S FATE.


and hopeless Coelebs that it was small
wonder if those who knew him fell into
the way of giving him brevet rank, in
the conviction that the future would be
as the past His own mother was
sharer in this belief, reluctantly enough,
for she was not the sort of mother to
be Jealous of @the not impossible she"
that might come to divide her domestic
empire; on the contrary, il was the seem
ing impossibility of such a she which
caused all her anxiety. Almost from
the time Perry had come out of round
Jackets. Mrs. Vance had occupied her
self with the question of his marriage,
and had set trap after trap for him; per-
hans il was the carly consciousness of
this that made him 70 wary; 1t Is Ger
tain that he moved among all these
snares with a circumspectiOn and secu-
rity which would have driven any ordi-
nary plotter long since to despair. But
Mrs Vance WIS an indomitable little
woman; though she lost hope, she had
never lost spirit, and no sooner did one
castle tumble down, than she proceeded
IN buiId a finer one on its ruins as COM
posedly as if she has not beheld the
fall of a hundred such structures already.
By means of much practice, these
two had acquired pretty thorough
knowledge of each others manner of fen
cling. so that Perry could form tolera-
bly correct notion of what was coming
when one morning, at breakfast, his
mother looked up from letter she had
been reading, and turned to him.
"Perry," said she, ~ had forgotten to
tell you was expecting my friends Mrs.
Wilkie and her daughter to spend next
week here"
"Such a pity | had not known your
plans!" blandly interposed Perry, re-
garding the bottom of his coffee cup with
an air of the deepest concern, "then |
should have made mine accordin gly-
As it is, Tom Grover"
"Ohg' eaid Mrs. Vance. There was
no need for her to hear further; it was
not by any means the first time that
Tom Grover had served as Perry's
scapegoat in like extremity. Perry,
however, went on glibly, without taking
any notice of the intelligent tone of her
exclf nation:
"Tom Grover wants me to go down to
his place next week. Franks making
a trip north, he tells me, and he asked
two or three people to meet him. He
made such a point of my coming, and
it would be rather awkward, You know
to 60 back from my promise"
All of which argument was indispu-
table so far as it went, only that Mr.
Perry Vance somehow omitted to men
ton one trifing circumstances which
might have rather changed the aspect O.
affairs; this was, that he had not as yet
given his promise, but was even nov
yowing to rush at once to Tom Grovel
and commit himself irrevocably, in or
der to escape the threatened INVASION
Mrs. Vance was not probably withou
her suspicious as to the true state of tn
case, bnt she only said, in resigned
tone:
''Weli, Perry, should have liked yo'
to meet the Wilkes, certainly; but,
YOU have other engagements, OF ceurs
there is no use in talking about it."
She took it so easily that Perry looke'
at her keenly for a moment, half fancy
ing some deep laid plot under that Sc
rene countenance, then concluded tina
she had at last made up her mind to tn
inevitable.
"Poor motheE," he. said to himsel
with kind of compunctious smile, SIC
her sake almost wish could shut m
eyes and walk into the trap, but / SUI
pose there's a fate in these things, an
I'm convinced mine was to live and di
bachelor"
Perry was told nothing but stri'
truth in saying that Tom Grover mad
a point of his coming to him; so th'
gentleman was as delighted at Perry
change of mind "a amused by its caus
For on that subject there was no Co
cealments between these old comradt
and Tom, with good will nothing lie
than reasonable in a married man, ha
helped his friend out of more than ol
danger.
"Dilly won't stay to be killed" sa
Tom, with malicious laugh over Il
disappointment in store for "the desig
ing youg woman" as he called the po
unknown Miss Wiikie. "All the bet''
old fellowl know George new
would forgive either of US if you we
to be gobbled up by this foreign iny
der, for, between ourselves, she is bon
to marry you to some cousin, or aunt,
grandmother, of her own"
(Georgie was Toms wife. brig
little brunette of a woman, who had
ken a great liking to Perry, and
elared him a thousand times too &C
for the old bachelor ranks.)
"Foreign or domestic foe,' said Per
in reply to Toms remark, ats all one
me, and I defy them alike" VIII
was not only an ungallant but q ra
challenge on the part of Mr.. Vance,
which he deserved TO be punished.
If Perry had accepted his friends
vitation in the first instance as me-
of escape, he certainly had had rea
to congratulate himself on finding
agreeable way out of his dilemma
Tom Growers house was the pleass
est visiting place to be found anywh'
principally, perhaps, because it was
like visiting place. If you had &C
into it without previous knowledge,
might have been puzzled to tell wh
were hosts and which were guests,
there was not the slightest fuss
constraint on either side, and the pc
appeared like a happy family, WI
everyone did exactly as he pleased.
There were people indeed who
that the Growers were a great deal
free and easy; whether they were or
slos- lo,,.o G.r,sl;o ~, EnaNEu hv v