On the other hand, when Peregrine,
in consequence of having danced with one of the minors overnight,
visited her in the morning, the Platonists immediately laid hold
on the occasion, tasked their imaginations, associated ideas, and,
with sage insinuations, retailed a thousand circumstances of the
interview, which never had any foundation in truth. They observed,
that, if girls are determined to behave with such indiscretion, they
must lay their accounts with incurring the censure of the world;
that she in question was old enough to act more circumspectly; and
wondered that her mother would permit any young fellow to approach
the chamber while her daughter was naked in bed. As for the servants
peeping through the key-hole, to be sure it was an unlucky accident;
but people ought to be upon their guard against such curiosity, and
give their domestics no cause to employ their penetration. These
and other such reflections were occasionally whispered as secrets
among those who were known to be communicative; so that, in a few
hours, it became the general topic of discourse; and, as it had
been divulged under injunctions of secrecy, it was almost impossible
to trace the scandal to its origin; because every person concerned
must have promulgated her own breach of trust, in discovering her
author of the report.
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