_Betsy_ and _Jenny_ are so different from _Idalia_ and her group that a critic of the idle Separatist persuasion would, were it not for troublesome certainties of fact, have no difficulty whatever in proving that they must be by different authors.

We know that they were _not_: and we know also the reason of their dissimilarity--the fact that _Pamela_ and her brother and their groups _ont passe par la_.[9] This fact is most interesting: and it shows, among other things, that Mrs.Eliza Haywood was a decidedly clever woman.
[9] The elect ladies about Richardson joined _Betsy_ with _Amelia_, and sneered at both.
At the same time the two books also show that she was not quite clever enough: and that she had not realised, as in fact hardly one of the minor novelists of this time did realise, the necessity of individualising character.

Betsy is both a nice and a good girl--"thoughtless" up to specification, but no fool, perfectly "straight" though the reverse of prudish, generous, merry, lovable.

But with all these good qualities she is not quite a person.

Jenny is, I think, a little more of one, but still not quite--while the men and the other women are still less.