Lady Russell manages to redeem herself in this last chapter, though the news of Mr Elliot and Anne's engagement must have been a blow!

"There was nothing less for Lady Russell to do, than to admit that she had been pretty completely wrong, and to take up a new set of opinions and of hopes."

And though JA says that while Lady Russell wasn't completely up to the mental agility necessary, she was still "a very good woman."

"She loved Anne better than she loved her own abilities; and when the awkwardness of the beginning was over, found little hardship in attaching herself as a mother to the man who was securing the happiness of her other child."

This is handsome! She finally realizes how much Anne loves Frederick, and since she loves Anne, she learns to love him as well. Good for her! And Frederick eventually reconciled himself to her as well.

"Lady Russell, in spite of all her former transgressions, he could now value from his heart. While he was not obliged to say that he believed her to have been right in originally dividing them, he was ready to say almost everything else in her favour."

I love that he still gets in a little dig there - he will learn to love her, because Anne does, but he will never admit that perhaps she was right all those years ago. ;-)

I have many ambivelent feelings about Lady Russell, but no matter how much I disagree with some of her actions - or inactions - I never doubt that she loves Anne, and with this wrapup, JA convinces me to close the book thinking well of her in the way she embraced Frederick and Anne's marriage.