I wrote in the margin of my book when the Gardiners came to visit that it's too bad they didn't live in the neighborhood instead of the Philipses. Mrs. Gardiner, in my opinion, is seen to be doing the things that the Bennet parents should have been doing. If she had been the aunt who lived in the vacinity instead of Mrs. Philips, I dare say Lydia's and Kitty's behaviors would have been addressed. I doubt the Gardiners would have aided and abetted their obsessions with men in red coats.