This seeming control of her characters is due largely to the fact that whatever happens to them is just what might have been expected. This is particularly true of the bad people she has created. Innocence led astray has been a popular means of exciting interest ever since Richardson told the sad story of Clarissa Harlowe. But there is no such incident in Jane Austen's books. Lydia, who hasn't a thought for anybody nor anything but a red-coat, and Wickham, who elopes with her without any intention of matrimony, are properly punished, by being married to each other, and the future unhappiness which must be their lot is due to their own natures. Willoughby had seduced one girl, trifled with the affections of another, and married an heiress, but he finds only misery, and sadly says: "I must rub through the world as well as I can." Henry Crawford, and his sister, with so much that is good in their natures, yet with a lack of moral fibre, are both unhappy. Each has lost the one they respected and loved and might have married. With what wit she leaves William Elliot, the all-agreeable man, the heir of Sir Walter, who, that he may keep the latter single, has enticed the scheming Mrs. Clay from his home: "And it is now a doubtful point whether his cunning or hers may finally carry the day; whether, after preventing her from being the wife of Sir Walter, he may not be wheedled and caressed at last into making her the wife of Sir William." And so punishment is meted out with that nicety of judgment which distinguishes every detail of her novels. But Jane Austen has little interest in immorality. "Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery; I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can," she says in _Mansfield Park_. And her readers have observed that deeds of evil take place off the stage, while she records only what is reported of them in the drawing-room.