[QUOTE=Barb JA]I think we, the readers are easy to please too. If Fanny would have just once given Mrs. Norris a parting glare as she left to do her bidding, all would be forgiven. But Austen didn't even throw us a bone. She must have had her reasons, and I think the novel is that much more interesting because of it. [QUOTE]

You are indeed clever Barb JA to council me to patience! Just a couple pages into Chapter 9 while viewing the chapel at Sotherton JA tosses me the bone I've been craving:

"For a few moments she (Mary) was unanswered. Fanny coloured and looked at Edmund, but felt too angry for speech..."

There it is...the reassurance that Fanny is indeed very human...she can be moved to such a state of anger that she turns red from the effort of holding back a retort. The only thing keeping her silent, because it is only Edmund & Mary present, is her good manners.

It is as if Chapter 9 becomes a turning point in the novel. Suddenly, JA is allowing us into Fanny a little deeper so that we can tap into those emotions that she has been forced to hide! I begin to feel her anger, as Chapters 9 and 10 progress and Mary continues her faux pas and bad behavior.

At the end of Chapter 10, I am ever more puzzled as to how someone as fine as Edmund could be attracted to someone as plastic as Mary! At the risk of being as crude as Mary, I will say that he is being led by a part of his anatomy which is most definitely NOT HIS BRAIN.