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36 he would provoke me, and if he submitted to me I should be ashamed of my own power."

"I see; you would like a man to think himself the master while obeying you in everything."

Thus the pair argued without any decisive result, till Madame Phlipon hinting at the possibility of being taken from her daughter, pointed out that, more than twenty, as she was, suitors would no longer be as plentiful as during the last five years, and begged her, therefore, not to reject a man who, if he were not her equal in intellect and taste, would, at least, love her, and with whom she might be happy. "Yes, mamma," cried she, with a deep sigh, "happy as you have been!" Her mother was disconcerted, and made no reply; nor from that moment did she open her lips again on that or any other match, at least in a pressing manner. The exclamation had escaped the daughter without premeditation; its effect convinced her she had touched a sore spot.

In the spring of 1775, Madame Phlipon's health had grown so much worse that they resolved on trying a short stay at Meudon during the Whitsun holidays, and by it she was much benefited. Returned to Paris, her daughter left her for a few hours, fairly well as it seemed, to pay a visit to Sister Agathe; but no sooner had she reached the convent, than an unaccountable anxiety hurried her home again.

Madame Roland says that these presentiments of a coming trouble were never by her laid to the account of superstition, but that, loving her mother above everything on earth, she had, without knowing it, noticed certain slight changes in manner and appearance, which served vaguely to disturb her. On this particular occasion she felt such a sinking of the heart,