The trick of headlong overture was a favourite with Afra.
"The Adventure of the Black Lady" begins, "About the beginning of last June, as near as I can remember, Bellamira came to town from Hampshire." It is a trick of course: and here probably borrowed from the French: but the line which separates trick from artistic device is an exceedingly narrow and winding one.

At any rate, this plunging into the middle of things wakes up the reader's attention, and does not permit him to doze.
"The Lucky Mistake," on the other hand, opens with a little landscape, "The river Loire has on its delightful banks, etc." "The Fair Jilt," a Bandello-like story, begins with an exaltation of Love: and so on.

Now these things, though they may seem matters of course to the mere modern reader, were not matters of course then.

Afra very likely imitated; her works have never been critically edited; and have not served as field for much origin-hunting.

But whether she followed others or not, she led her own division.