The inevitable disunion, brought about largely by Danby's mother (an awful old middle-class harridan), follows; and the desk-and-head incident mentioned above is brought about by her seeing the (false) announcement of her old lover's death in the paper.

But she herself is consistently, perhaps excessively, but it is fair to say not ridiculously, angelic; Danby is a gentleman and a good fellow at heart; and of course, after highly tragical possibilities, these good gifts triumph.

The greatest danger is threatened, and the actual happy ending brought about, by an auxiliary plot, in which the actors are the old lover (two old lovers indeed), his wife (a beautiful featherhead, who has been Emilia's school-fellow and dearest friend), and a wicked "Duke of C." Even from this sketch the tolerably expert reader of novels may discover where the weak points are likely to lie; he will be a real expert if he anticipates the strong ones without knowing the book.

As was formerly noticed, the dialogue is ill supplied with diction.

The date of the story is 1809: and the author had for that period a fairly safe pattern in Miss Austen: but she does not use it at all, nor does she make the lingo frankly that of her own day.