money on an illicit connection. To add to her perplexities, she feared that she herself was the innocent cause of his demoralisation, and that, but for her, he might marry again, and once more take to orderly habits.
The event was not one to be desired for her own sake, for she was mistress of the house and herself, in a way quite unusual for French girls; but the hope of rescuing her father from profligacy, improvidence, and an indigent old age decided her. There is something not a little comic in this reversal of the mutual relations of parent and child—the wise daughter pondering how she may suitably marry the flighty papa of fifty-five, and not daring to let him guess her plans, lest he should set himself tooth and nail against them. A suitable woman was discovered, too, and the parties seemed mutually willing; but, the lady being of an undecided turn of mind, nothing came of the affair.
Her uncles, more especially her great-uncle and god-father who was devoted to her, found it necessary to insist on M. Phlipon's taking an inventory of his property, previous to letting his daughter have the share which rightfully belonged to her; but they did it in such a bungling and dilatory fashion that months and years elapsed before any effective steps were taken, and in the meanwhile he had not only frittered away his capital, but come to regard Manon as the cause of these troubles, so that sometimes he hardly came near his house, or, if he did, avoided speaking to her. Her life, however, was an exceedingly busy one, for, while persistently carrying on her studies, she was a most punctilious housekeeper, looked after her fathers, diminishing custom in his absence, was frequently engaged on some charitable errand or other, and at
