<p>A Group of Noble Dames is a collection of short stories written by Thomas Hardy. The stories are contained by a frame narrative in which ten members of a club each tell one story about a noble dame in the 17th or 18th century. All ten stories were published in serial magazines before Hardy collected them into book form. "The Duchess of Hamptonshire" and "The Honourable Laura" were written relatively early in Hardy's career, in 1878 and 1881 re...