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42 alluding to him in her correspondence, especially to the Discours and the Contrat Social, "A book to be studied, not read," she remarked, "because, although very clearly written, it is too full of matter for the connection of the whole to be seized without effort."

The whole of Rousseau's works were given her by the "Republican Philosopher," who had fallen in love with her. In touching on this Chapter of Suitors, we must retrace our steps and begin with those who had appeared on the scene before the mother's death. For Manon did not belong to that class of shabbily treated young women who can at most boast of but one or two strings to their bow, being in that, as in some other respects, so favoured by nature as to be beset by a legion of wooers. These importunate creatures became the plague of her life, and she at last dreaded the addresses of a new aspirant as much as some young ladies rejoice in receiving them. It is curious enough to mark how these pretenders to Mademoiselle Phlipon's hand rise in the social scale in proportion as her personality gradually triumphs over her surroundings. The reader may remember that Spanish Colossus who taught her the guitar, and who in turn conceived the wild idea of asking this girl of fourteen or fifteen in marriage of her father. In his footsteps followed another of her teachers, the wizened little dancing-master, who, for the second time a widower, had had his huge wen operated upon before proceeding to the more delicate operation of proposing for her in marriage.

M. Phlipon, who prided himself not a little on his personal appearance, enjoyed the joke heartily, and without precisely telling his daughter of these curious wooers, threw out so many sly hints, that she could