On 9 May 1890, Hardy posted off the six stories originally published as A Group of Noble Dames to the periodical, the Graphic, and immediately set off with Emma for his annual visit to London for ‘the season’. It would appear that he had no presentiment to trouble him that the arrival of the stories at the Graphic would cause offence and consternation – but Hardy never did seem to be troubled by such presentiments. As Michael Millgate writes, he exhibited a ‘curious incapacity to see his work as it might be seen by others, to appreciate its potential impact upon minds and imaginations not precisely attuned to his own.’ One can hear the exasperation in the editor William Locker's letter to Hardy from 25 June: he writes that the stories are

It is more than likely that those Victorian fathers most decidedly would have wished to draw a veil over the sentiments of Squire Dornell, father to Betty, the ‘First Countess of Wessex’ in the first tale.