"Anne Elliot, so young; known to so few, to be snatched off by a stranger without alliance or fortune" Chap. 4

I have been pondering this as well. Isn't LR actually very like Anne's family? She is certainly superior in the development of her mind and much more practical but she does not feel enough for Anne to motivate activity to help her situation. LR obviously spends enough time in Bath or London to have a large acquaintance but only once has she taken Anne to Bath. Why didn't she take her to London or anywhere else for that matter?

When CW entered Anne's life, for the first time she had someone who cared, who felt enough to act! How wonderful that must have felt. One would think LR would have felt so responsible for Anne's heartbreak that she would have tried more than one trip to enlarge Anne's acquaintance. Where else was Anne supposed to find a husband? Four years later when Charles Musgrove proposed, LR was lowering her expectations for Anne to match how little she had done to make a "better" match possible.

"however Lady Russell might have asked yet for something more while Anne was nineteen she would have rejoiced to see her at twenty-two so respectably removed from the partialities and injustice of her father's house, and settled so permanently near herself." Chap. 4