They wanted to marry him.
_They_ were the prospective suitors.

As if I didn't know what Susie and Bridget meant! I'm no child! But all this doesn't make Father like _them_.

I'm not sure but it makes him dislike them.

Anyhow, he won't have anything to do with them.

He always runs away over to the observatory, or somewhere, and won't see them; and I've heard him say things about them to Aunt Jane, too--words that sound all right, but that don't mean what they say, and everybody knows they don't.