with your assessment and you wrote it beautifully. It expresses what I, too, see about the two younger women and Miss Bates. Jane Fairfax lost both parents at a younger age than Emma lost one parent, and did not have the advantage of 30k pounds waiting for her, and if she were of a more retiring nature to begin with, this may have clinched it. I expecially liked your observations on Emma's obsession with looks and how it relates to her treatment of people -- a female Mr Elliott in the making perhaps?