What a dead-weight, energy sapping character Mary is. She is annoying me so much that I want to slap her!

Having insisted on staying at Lyme to care for Louisa, she is having hysterics again, still down on Charles Hayter and offended by Mrs Musgrove senior being given precedence, and is moaning because there is only a maidservant to wait on them. She is preening herself on being so very useful, whilst she is actually draining everyone's energy and enjoying a very agreeable fortnights holiday.

Her attitude to Captain Benwick is also infuriating. Mary can't find a good word to say about him – he'd dull company, has no conversation, and prefers having his nose in a book to hovering around Mary ready to pick up her scissors, (pick up your own scissors you lazy $*%!!). Yet Mary is jealous that Anne may be a greater attraction at Uppercross than herself.

So what, exactly, is Mary's problem? Her jealousy and self-centred attention seeking suggest that she may be deeply insecure. Could this have something to do with the sneering attitudes of her father and Elizabeth? She is the youngest sister, not especially handsome. She was 9 or 10 years old when her mother died, and Anne is Lady Russel's favourite of the three sisters.