The trouble began, the defence stated, by Miss Travers fancying that she was slighted by Lady Wilde.

She thereupon published a scandalous pamphlet under the title of "Florence Boyle Price, a Warning; by Speranza," with the evident intention of causing the public to believe that the booklet was the composition of Lady Wilde under the assumed name of Florence Boyle Price.

In this pamphlet Miss Travers asserted that a person she called Dr.Quilp had made an attempt on her virtue.

She put the charge mildly.

"It is sad," she wrote, "to think that in the nineteenth century a lady must not venture into a physician's study without being accompanied by a bodyguard to protect her." Miss Travers admitted that Dr.Quilp was intended for Sir William Wilde; indeed she identified Dr.Quilp with the newly made knight in a dozen different ways.