In this blending of morality and humour, the author is only following the practice of eighteenth century novelists. His morality (in the main, very sound and reasonable) hangs by the humour of separate incidents; yet these, together, form a sequence of moral and “cautionary” tales. There is, for example, the warning against useless display in the account of Lady Ducklington’s funeral,—“the Money they squandered away would have been better laid out in little Books for Children, or in Meat, Drink and Cloaths for the Poor”;—against superstition,—the story of the ghost in the church, or the dramatic Witch story of the Second Part; and there are parallel examples of kindness and good sense.