“I can think of no one who would have trouble understanding the plot of this novel,” Miss Hardcastle continued. “It is ever so predictable: crumbling castles, a mysterious figure in the night, and a romance continually thwarted by circumstance. The only question I have is whether or not I shall bother continuing to the conclusion, for it seems that I can now predict it. But is not that part of the charm of such a book? Though I can guess the ending, I yet worry about the heroine’s happiness.”