Gary decides that he should help this girl who is of genteel birth, and clearly not experienced in the ways of the world. He asks her history and while eating some food he has bought for her, she tells him a fanciful story which he recognises as a lie. He tells her so, and she tells him a more truthful version of her story. She is called Amanda but won't tell him her full name. She is not quite 17, but has been engaged secretly to a neighbour of her family's, who is in the Army. Her family spoil her but regard her as far too young to marry and they think that Neil her beau is not well off enough either.
Gary is touched by a certain resemblance to Clarissa, though she was fair and Amanda is dark.. He feels that he has to help her but she is mulishly obstinate in refusing to tell him who are her family, or to go back to them. She insists that in running away and finding a job, she will show her grandfather that she is old enough to get married. Gary suggests that she waits till she has a year in Society but she says that she has been in Bath Society and been quite a hit, because she is very pretty, and she knows about fashionable life and would rather follow the army with Neil.
Gareth insists on taking her with him to Brancaster, though it is difficult to do this when he is on a visit to propose to Hester, to turn up with a pretty girl. He arrives with her, and Hester while polite is a little taken aback by Amanda's presence. However she accepts the cover story that Gary was meant to be taking Amanda to relatives at Oundle but they had not turned up and he planned to take her on there when he has had his visit. Lady Widmore, Hester's sister in law, and Fabian, her lecherous old uncle, both believe that Gary picked Amanda up on the way and that she is a "country bit of muslin" whom he means to make his mistress.
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