That was how they spoke of her story in the duchy's drawing-rooms;for what had Loveday been, at the most charitable count, but a youngfemale--less humanly speaking, even a young person? And what was thespring of her mad crimes but folly, mere weak, feminine folly? Evenan improper motive--one of those over-powering passions one readsabout rather surreptitiously in the delightful works of that dear,naughty, departed Lord Byron--would have been somehow more ...more ... satisfactory. One could only whisper such a sentiment, butit stirred in many a feminine breast when Loveday's story set theripples of reprobation circling some twenty miles, till the incomparablybigger pebble of the Prince of Wales' nuptials made correspondinglygreater waves, even though they took a month or so to spread all itsfascinating details so far from the Metropolis. What, after all, as atopic of conversation, was Loveday's ill-gotten gaud compared with thethrill of the new Alexandra jacket with its pegtop sleeves? One shouldhold a right proportion in all things.