The "Lettres Nouvelles de Monsieur Boursault ... Avec Treize Lettres Amoureuses d'une Dame à un Cavalier," loosely translated by Mrs. Haywood as "Letters from a Lady of Quality to a Chevalier" (1721),[3] was one of the numerous imitations of the Portuguese Letters. Like most of the other imitations it echoed the mannerisms rather than the fervor of its original. The lady's epistles do not reveal a story, but describe in detail the doubts, disappointments, fears, jealousies, and raptures of a married woman for a lover who in the last three letters has left France for England. Except for this remove there is no change in the situation of the characters. The lover apparently remains constant to the end. The reader is even left in some doubt as to the exact nature of their relationship. The lady at one time calls it a "criminal Conversation," but later resents an attempt upon her honor, and seems generally to believe that "a distant Conversation, if it is less sweet, will be, not only more pure, but also more durable." But perhaps it is only fair to let the author speak for herself. "The Lady, whose Letters I have taken the liberty to translate, tho she has been cautious enough in expressing any thing (even in those the most tender among them) which can give the Reader an Assurance she had forfeited her Virtue; yet there is not one, but what sufficiently proves how impossible it is to maintain such a Correspondence, without an Anxiety and continual Perturbation of Mind, which I think a Woman must have bid farewell to her Understanding, before she could resolve to endure. "In the very first she plainly discovers the Agitation of her Spirits, confesses she knows herself in the wrong, and that every Expression her Tenderness forces from her, is a Stab to her Peace; she dreads the Effects of her Lover's too powerful Attractions, doubts her own Strength of resisting such united Charms as she finds in him, and trembles at the Apprehensions, that by some unlucky Accident the Secret should be known. Every thing alarms her ... 'Tis impossible to be conscious of any thing we wish to conceal, without suspecting the most undesigning Words and Actions as Snares laid to entrap us ... So this unfortunate Lady, divided between Excess of Love, and Nicety of Honour, could neither resolve to give a loose to the one, nor entirely obey the Precepts of the other, but suffered herself to be tossed alternately by both. And tho the Person she loved was most certainly (if such a thing can be) deserving all the Condescensions a Woman could make, by his Assiduity, Constancy, and Gratitude, yet it must be a good while before she could receive those Proofs; and the Disquiets she suffered in that time of Probation, were, I think, if no worse ensued, too dear a Price for the Pleasure of being beloved by the most engaging and most charming of his Sex."