to De L'Amye but jilted by
him, accidentally discovers the pair and immediately communicates with
the gallant's wife, who with the Valiers soon appears to reclaim the
recreants. The wife rages at her husband, he at the perfidious
Douxmourie, while Lasselia offers to stab herself. By the good offices
of her friends, however, the girl is persuaded to enter a nunnery where
she becomes a pattern of piety. De L'Amye is reconciled to his wife.

In the first few pages of the story the author makes a noteworthy
attempt to create an atmosphere of impending disaster. When De L'Amye
first meets the heroine, three drops of blood fall from his nose and
stain the white handkerchief in her hand, and the company rallies him on
this sign of an approaching union, much to his wife's discomfiture. The
accident and her yet unrecognized love fill Lasselia's mind with uneasy
forebodings. "She wou'd start like one in a Frenzy, and cry out, Oh! it
was not for nothing that those ominous Drops of Blood fell from him on
my Handkerchief!--It was not for nothing I was seiz'd with such an
unusual Horror--Nor is it in vain, that my Soul shrinks, and seems to
dread a second Interview!--They are all, I fear, too sure Predictions of
some fatal Consequence." These gloomy thoughts at length give way to an
ecstasy of despairing love, and when her affection is reciprocated, to a
series of passionate letters and poems, which indeed make necessary the
author's apology for the "too great Warmth" of the style.

Since the ultimate disaster of adventurous heroines was regarded as a
sop to moral readers, Mrs. Haywood frequently failed to gratify her
audience with a happy ending, but occasionally a departure from strict
virtue might be condoned, provided it took place in a country far
removed from England. The scene of "The Padlock: or, No Guard without
Virtue"[14] was appropriately laid in Spain.

Don Lepidio of Seville, by his jealous conduct, completely alienates the
affections of his young and beautiful wife, Violante. She finally writes
a reply to the earnest entreaties of an unknown lover, and though filled
with apprehension at seeing her letter carried off by an ugly black
slave, agrees to meet him. Don Honorius, for it was he who had assumed
the disguise of the slave, proves to be the wonder of his sex. He
persuades her to elope to the house of one of his relations, and after
Lepidio has secured a divorce, marries her with great felicity.

That novels of