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Rh not help knowing all about it. As has been said, Manon used to go shopping with her mother, or occasionally with the maid, and in her dealings with a neighbouring butcher was always particularly well served. To her surprise, this identical butcher, whom she used to see on week-days cutting up joints, was always meeting them on their Sunday walks in a handsome suit of black and lace ruffles. Moreover, when she fell ill once, he sent round every morning to inquire after her health, enforcing the message with the choicest tit-bits of his shop. Thereat her father smiled, joked, rubbed his hands, and one day gravely introduced her to a certain Mademoiselle Michon, who had come ceremoniously in the butcher's name (a rich widower) to ask her hand. Her father having maliciously let her in for this interview, she found means to evade giving an offensive refusal, by saying that she was so fond of her present way of life, as to be resolved not to change her state for years to come. This reply did not precisely suit the views of her father, who exclaimed, "Why, here is an answer, forsooth, to frighten away all future lovers!"

Presently, however, there came an offer from a man her parents deemed not at all unsuited to her. This was in 1771, when she was seventeen, and it is curious to note how, before she had really thought much about marriage, she mechanically viewed it after the conventional French fashion. This man—a jeweller, who had already lost two wives, and who had a good business, an excellent reputation and an amiable disposition, seems chiefly to have desired the connection because Manon's unusually serious turn of mind led him to think she would make a capital housewife and accountant. She herself seemed quite without illusions! In