Eliza and Marianne are responsible for their poor decisions and behavior but I think mitigating their mistakes is their naivety, youth and the facts they were targeted and played by a terrific liar and manipulator. They were both unprotected self-willed naïve seventeen year olds and he is a manipulative twenty-five year old Adonis with a vastly better acquaintance with the world. They were putty in his hands. In Ch. 31 long after Willoughby’s abandonment, Eliza is still as much in love with him as Marianne. It is probable he gained Eliza’s and Miss Grey’s affections in the same dishonest manner he gained Marianne’s. Marianne (Ch. 29) and it appears Miss Grey (Ch. 30) both believed they were engaged to Willoughby and poor Eliza may have believed she was as well—she certainly believed Willoughby was going to return to her. Eliza and Marianne are not guiltless but I do have sympathy for them because they were used, taken advantage of and tossed away like so much trash under Willoughby’s too expensive boots. (:D)