that the whole Mrs. Smith episode could be removed without damage to the book -- I agree with many of your points about her function in the narrative. I just meant that the implausible stuff -- her past connections with Mr. Elliot, her documentary proof of his bad behavior, etc. -- seems unnecessary to me. JA could have cemented his bad character by having him run off with Mrs. Clay at the end, after discovering his pursuit of Anne was doomed. Or, as I tried to suggest above, she could have found a more convincing way to introduce the past-bad-behavior angle. That's all I meant, really.