I have followed everybody's comments re Lady Russell and find myself perplexed. She cares deeply for Anne and is careful and considerate, and yet her plans for Anne are based on what she (LR) thinks important and believes will make Anne happy.

The references to LR for this week's GR are as follows:

Vol II Ch 1 (Chapter 13)--LR is glad to see Anne improved in looks. LR is also considerate in wondering whether Anne is up to visiting the Crofts, when LR asks Anne to visit with her. LR liked Mrs Croft and wished the friendship to continue except the Crofts left soon after. LR liking the Mrs Croft is a point in her favour for me.

LR hasn't changed her opinion of CW. Her reaction when hears he is likely to marry Louise isn't charitable: "Lady Russell had only to listen composedly, and wish them happy; but internally her heart revelled in angry pleasure, in pleased contempt, that the man who at twenty-three had seemed to understand somewhat of the value of an Anne Elliott, should, eight years afterwards, be charmed by a Louisa Musgrove".

This sentence says so much:
* Is the pleasure that he doesn't want to marry Anne this time around, and the contempt he should pick a lesser woman to be interested to marry?

Vol II Ch 2 (Chapter 14)--LR's interest in meeting Captain Benwick seems pleasant enough. Later she speaks so harshly of Mr Elliot that it stops Mary in her tracks when she starts to speak of him.

I was taken by LR's disinterest in Mrs Musgrove's "little quiet cheerfulness" which consisted of noisy family and Christmas revelry, when LR's "little quiet cheerfulness" was Bath and its cold, impersonal noises. I know Anne "did not share these feelings" with LR, and I understood why when she was leaving the warmth and love of the Musgrove family for her own family and a place she didn't like.

Vol 1 Ch 3 (Chapter 15)--Nil references

Vol II Ch 4 (Chapter 16)--LR was unhappy to see "... Mrs Clay in such favour, and Anne so overlooked", surely a point in LR's favour. However the rest of the paragraph does her no favours as this "... vexed her as much when she was away, as a person in Bath who drinks the water, gets all the new publications, and has a very large acquaintance, has time to be vexed." Out of sight, out of mind?

We are also told that Anne understands that she can see things differently to LR, at the same time as we are told that Anne understands that LR's views of Mr Elliot have changed. LR seems to view is as natural that he should have a "great desire of a reconciliation", and perhaps she doesn't question his motives as they accord with her own deference, described in Chapter 2 where she was "... as aristocatic in her ideas of what was due to them (the Elliots) ..." Anne, on the other hand, questions this change, but manages to explain it away.

Vol II Ch 5 (Chapter 17)--We hear of LR later she and Mr Elliot rearrange their evening to visit the Dalrymples when invited by the Elliots. Yet another example of LR's deference to rank.

LR is also "perfectly decided in her opinion of Mr Elliot" that he means to ask Anne to marry him. I liked her a little better for her support of this as she does not press the issue but ventures "little more than hints of what might be hereafter ... of the desirableness of the alliance, supposing such attachment to be real and returned."

Vol II, Ch 6 (Chapter 18)--LR took Anne out every day in her carriage, an example of LR's thoughts and kindnesses for Anne.