Many novels, most notably Hannah Webster's The Coquette, focused on how terrible it is for a woman to flirt before her marriage. "I did not speak 20 sentences before sir Robert proposed to me", explained Lady Bidulph while teaching her daughter how to court properly in "Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph". A coquette must be a fool, wicked, and immoral. But Peggy is none of these. She sees things as they are, sometimes too much for her own good, and flirts with men she finds interesting. She decides to tell about them, from her point of view. The feelings, the reasons they did not keep in touch, and her "notions" about them. This is her way to examine late Victorian society including the lives of other oppressed minorities. This novel is considered semi autobiographical.