Lady Susan discusses Frederica's runaway attempt in Letter 16, written to Mrs. Johnson. In this letter, Lady Susan utilizes metaphor to compare her own daughter to the devil:
That horrid girl of mine has been trying to run away.—I had not a notion of her being such a little Devil before;—she seemed to have all the Vernon Milkiness; but on receiving the letter in which I declared my intentions about Sir James, she actually attempted to elope.
Lady Susan's status as an unreliable narrator makes one automatically suspicious of this portrayal of Frederica; it is equally if not more likely that Frederica is a lovely person in an unlucky situation. Lady Susan's use of metaphor in this passage actually tells the reader more about her character than Frederica's. Most readers would expect a mother to react with anxiety and worry if her daughter tried to run away or elope. For an instance of this in Austen's own work, look no further than Mrs. Bennet from Pride and Prejudice: when Lydia Bennet elopes with Mr. Wickham, Mrs. Bennet breaks out in hysterics. Both Lady Susan and Mrs. Bennet react to similar situations in a way that serves to make them, instead of their daughters, the center of attention; the difference between them is that Lady Susan comes across as cold and heartless, comparing her daughter to the devil, while Mrs. Bennet appears overly sentimental.
