Readers have said that she is silly, only because she is not heroic.

I do not know that she is more silly than many young ladies whom we who are old have loved in our youth, or than those whom our sons are loving at the present time.

Readers complain of Amelia because she is absolutely true to nature.

There are no Raffaellistic touches, no added graces, no divine romance.

She is feminine all over, and British,--loving, true, thoroughly unselfish, yet with a taste for having things comfortable, forgiving, quite capable of jealousy, but prone to be appeased at once, at the first kiss; quite convinced that her lover, her husband, her children are the people in all the world to whom the greatest consideration is due.