Just a couple of things I noticed:

[As a child, Catherine] had a thin awkward figure...At fifteen, appearances were mending;...her features were softened by plumpness.

Once again evidence that thin was *not* considered attractive in JA's time.

Mrs. Morland was a very good woman, and wished to see her children everything they ought to be; but her time was so much occupied in lying–in and teaching the little ones, that her elder daughters were inevitably left to shift for themselves.