With her family's social situation, would she have "come out" at all? I could be wrong, but isn't that generally something done by the richer "well to do" families? Because of her father's situation, Fanny's family is considered lower class despite who her mother was.

Or maybe I missed something...

Anyhow, I appreciated this section much more after reading a JA biography "Becoming Jane Austen" by Jon Spence. He talks about the Austen family regularly putting on plays at their own home, and JA apparently drew from that to write about Henry, Julia and Maria...JA's brother fell for a married woman at that time (who was older than he even.) Eventually they married (after her husband died) but JA found the whole thing rather scandalous and upsetting.