on her own part.

Each one in turn asked for her hand and was rejected; and a host of
others followed, to meet a similar fate, until her father threatened
to marry her to the first stranger who crossed his portal, whether
either one wished it or no. She says in her memoirs, "The
respectable character of my mother, the appearance of some fortune,
and my being an only child, made the project of matrimony a tempting
one to a number of persons who were strangers to me. The greater
part, finding it difficult to obtain an introduction, adopted the
expedient of writing to my father. These letters were always shown
to me. I wrote the answers, which my father faithfully copied. I was
much amused at acting the part of my own father, and dismissed my
suitors with dignity, leaving no room for resentment or hope. Here
began to break out those dissensions with my father which lasted
ever after. He loved and respected commerce, I despised it; and he
was much concerned at my rejection of suitors who possessed any
fortune."

After the death of Madame Philipon, which occurred in her daughter's
twenty-first year, Manon's life at home became almost unbearable.
Her extreme grief impaired her health, and anxiety and mortification
were added by the excesses and frivolous extravagances into which
her father plunged. He formed associations with people of bad
character, and took to gambling. Manon strove to make herself an
agreeable companion, and to entertain him at home, but the attempt
was futile. She filled her lonely hours with study, and with writing
letters to Sophie. One day a tall, thin gentleman, bald and yellow,
past forty, and looking older, presented a letter of introduction
from Miss Cannet.

It was M. Roland, an austere philosopher, of an ancient family, to
whom Sophie had often referred. Manon admired his intellect and his
respectability; and when, after some two or three years, he made an
offer of marriage, she was ready to accept; but M. Philipon bluntly
and insolently refused his consent, through a strong personal
dislike which he had conceived for the severe moralist and
philosopher.

Manon could not marry against her father's wishes, but she could
leave the home now so distasteful to her. She had saved only a small
sum from her mother's fortune, amounting to about one hundred
dollars per year. With this, she retired to the Convent of the
Congregation, and shut herself up with her books, and received only
her old frie