The young lady receives her lover, prepared to treat him with gentle mockery and to keep him at a convenient distance.

The young lover is not daunted, and plainly warns her against the consequences of such levity.

But as the little duel proceeds, each gradually detects the real good that underlies the surface qualities of the other.

In spite of his formalism, Sybil discerns that her lover is full of good sense and feeling; and he makes the same discovery with regard to the young lady's _badinage._ And then, after a conflict of wits that seems to terminate without any actual result, the anxious father approaches his child with a final appeal to her sense of filial duty: "With anger fraught, but willing to persuade, The wrathful father met the smiling maid: 'Sybil,' said he, 'I long, and yet I dread To know thy conduct--hath Josiah fled?
And, grieved and fretted by thy scornful air, For his lost peace, betaken him to prayer?
Couldst then his pure and modest mind distress By vile remarks upon his speech, address, Attire, and voice ?'--'All this I must confess.' 'Unhappy child! what labour will it cost To win him back!'-- 'I do not think him lost.' 'Courts he then (trifler!) insult and disdain ?'-- 'No; but from these he courts me to refrain.' 'Then hear me, Sybil: should Josiah leave Thy father's house ?'--'My father's child would grieve.' 'That is of grace, and if he come again To speak of love ?'--'I might from grief refrain.' 'Then wilt thou, daughter, our design embrace ?'-- Can I resist it, if it be of grace ?' 'Dear child! in three plain words thy mind express: Wilt thou have this good youth ?'--'Dear father! yes.'" All the characters in the story--the martinet father and his poor crushed wife, as well as the pair of lovers--are indicated with an appreciation of the value of dramatic contrast that might make the little story effective on the stage.

One of the Tales in this collection, _The Confidant_, was actually turned into a little drama in blank verse by Charles Lamb, under the changed title of _The Wife's Trial: or the Intruding Widow_.