How singular that virtue must be which was kept pure and immaculate by the possessor, whilst indulging in habits of falsehood and dishonesty.

I had always thought the gypsy females extraordinary beings.
I had often wondered at them, their dress, their manner of speaking, and, not least, at their names; but, until the present day, I had been unacquainted with the most extraordinary point connected with them.

How came they possessed of this extraordinary virtue?
was it because they were thievish?
I remembered that an ancient thief-taker, who had retired from his useful calling, and who frequently visited the office of my master at law, the respectable S..

., who had the management of his property--I remembered to have heard this worthy, with whom I occasionally held discourse, philosophic and profound, when he and I chanced to be alone together in the office, say that all first-rate thieves were sober, and of well-regulated morals, their bodily passions being kept in abeyance by their love of gain; but this axiom could scarcely hold good with respect to these women--however thievish they might be, they did care for something besides gain: they cared for their husbands.

If they did thieve, they merely thieved for their husbands; and though, perhaps, some of them were vain, they merely prized their beauty because it gave them favour in the eyes of their husbands.
Whatever the husbands were--and Jasper had almost insinuated that the males occasionally allowed themselves some latitude--they appeared to be as faithful to their husbands as the ancient Roman matrons were to theirs.