Fayetteville Observer

A PRETTY GAME.

On the porch of Mr. Everson's fine residence in M-, on a beautiful evening about sunset, stood Julia Everson, a beautiful young lady, with deep blue, lustrous eyes, and Francis Rowley, a tall handsome young man, his face glowing with health and his deportment that of a perfect gentleman.

"Your father," said Francis, addressing Julia, "is as determined as ever, I suppose, about this affair of-of marriage?"

His look was averted from her while he pronounced the words.

"Determined!" Julia Everson exclaimed; "Why papa is so bent upon my becoming Mrs Upjohn, that he would die of rage, I think, were my resolution known to him-"

"And that resolution is, Julia"

"To give Mr. Upjohn plainly to understand that the times we live in are not those which tolerate the affiancing of two children in their cradles, merely because their parents happen to be friends. Besides this George Upjohn has the manners of a regular clod, and has passed his whole life in some obscure place out West. Do you believe in proverbs, Francis?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because I do." Julia Everson's face wore a look of firm determination as she spoke.

"To what particular proverb do you have reference just now?" Francis asked.

"To the one which says 'Where there's a will there's a way.' I think that you and I may test its truth, if we are so inclined. Of course, I won't elope with you, Francis. I don't consider elopements respectable. I shall never marry you if I have to do it-there!" She looked serious enough to keep her resolution.

"You mean, then, Julia by coming the mightily eloquent over your father?"

Francis asked.

"And get pool-poohed for our pains," she replied, with a slight laugh, "No, I mean something else. Papa is still asleep, and likely to remain so for an hour. Let us take a stroll through the garden, and I will disburden myself of a weighty secret."

"Is Mr. Everson at home?" George Upjohn was the inquirer, and he was shown into a small sitting-room on the ground floor of the house. Presently the door opened, and Julia Everson entered the room.

"Mr. John Everson," said she "has been unwell for several days, sir, and he has lately fallen asleep; his daughter, Miss Julia, does not consider it advisable to awake him. But she will be happy to see Mr. Upjohn herself, provided he wishes it."

"Of course-of course--by all means—certainly," stammered Upjohn, to whom the immediate prospect of beholding his fiancee was thoroughly overwhelming. "Be good enough, won't you, to tell her so?"

Soon after a tall young lady (who struck him, the more he looked upon her, as an unnaturally and disagreeably tall woman attired in a short, ill-fitting dress and wearing, upon a countenance full of "broad-blown comliness, red and white," about the most thorough from ear-to-ear sort of smile that Upjohn ever remembered having seen, entered the room.

"How d'ye do?" said the gigantic virgin, accompanying her salutation with a boisterous laugh. "You're Mr. Upjohn, of course? Well, I don't like your looks a bit. How do you like mine?"

"I-I-think there must be some mistake," he answered in amazement. "I understood Miss Julia Everson was to-"

"Well, I am Julia Everson."

"Impossible!"

"Perhaps you mean I disappoint you," she cried out in a loud, coarse tone. "I dare say you're a good enough kind of a fellow, but then you're decidedly not the fellow for me. Saw that the instant I clapped eyes on you. I'm the sort of a girl that likes plucky, sporting-men with lots of go' in them, and a general air of being up to snuff." You're not that sort of a chap."

"No!" exclaimed Upjohn, with a pale embarrassed countenance "no, Miss Julia, I am not the type of manhood you admire. Is--is-your father in? Can I see him for a few moments?"

"Our girl told you he was asleep, didn't she?" was her indifferent answer. "Besides, as you've come to stay several days, and have brought your portmanteau, any time will do, at which to hold your confab with pa."

Upjohn, stiffening visibly in manner, abruptly answered:

"Since I cannot see your father it is better that I should at once take my departure."

"And why so, Georgy?"

"Georgy!" Could he believe his own ears? Was this vixenish, overgrown female the Julia Everson whom he had worshiped in dreams as his future wife? He would rather die than become the husband of so hideously ogreish a creature.

"I have no reason to give for leaving so abruptly," he said, in sharp, cold tones.

Julia made some odd sound between a giggle and a chuckle, and as he was about to retire, she said:

"Oh, you don't like fun, d'ye? Have a cigar, won't you?"

"Heavens!" exclaimed the bewildered Upjohn, stumbling backward in astonishment, "you can't possibly mean that you smoke?"

"Certainly I do," was the reply, Miss Everson biting the end of a very nice-looking cigar as she spoke.

Mr. Upjohn walked deliberately forward, and took his portmanteau, and, having bowed was about quitting the apartment, when Julia exclaimed:

"I hope I haven't offended you. Pa'll be frightfully mad when he hears you've gone in this style. He'll be sure to blame me, too. I wish you'd leave him a little note, explaining that you go of--of your own free will, as it were."

"I shall be willing, Miss Everson," he said, "to leave a note for your father. What is it you desire me to write?" taking a card-case and pencil from one of his pockets.

"Only that you don't think we suit each other well enough to get married. Please don't say anything about smoking, because pa don't know I smoke, and"

Upjohn delayed no longer, but wrote the following on a card, and handed it to Miss Everson as a message to her father:

"Sir:-I desire to have the agreement-broken concerning my future marriage with your daughter. I have held an interview with her, and I confess to being wholly unwilling that such a lady shall become my wife.

"GEORGE UPJOHN."

"That's precisely it!" boisterously exclaimed Miss Everson, seizing the cigar. "Old fellow, you've got a handsome streak in you, if we don't like each other.'"

Upjohn rushed from the apartment, and short afterward the hall door closed upon his retreating figure.

"Francis, you have certainly been making the most utterly revolting creature of yourself that it is possible to conceive of. I have been listening in the dining-room yonder to every word you said." And the real Julia Everson surveyed her disguised lover with laughing eyes.

"There is my chief trophy," exclaimed Rowley, waving above his head the card which contained Upjohn's message to the father.

Upjohn put in no further appearance. Mr. Everson was deeply indignant on reading his card, and ultimately consented to Julia's marriage with Francis Rowley, the man of her choice. So much for the clever disenchantment and the verification of Julia's favorite maxim "Where there's a will, there's a way."