Persuasion Part III

Anne is sorry to leave Mary's place to go to Bath as she finds her father and older sister are as snobbish and cold as ever to her. Henrietta, the younger of the 2 Musgrove girls becomes formally engaged to her cousin, Charles Hayter who has just been ordained clergyman and has found a living nearby. Henrietta has been briefly infatuated with Wentworth but she is happy to be marrying Hayter who is heir to a small estate but was not able to marry till he got the living. Anne tries to make the best of her new life in Bath but she is lonely iwht her snobbish sister and father. She is pleased when Lady Russell comes to stay there and the whole family are pleased when they meet with William Elliot, their cousin, who is heir to Sir Walter's estate. He fell out with the family some years earlier, and he married a rich woman who has now died. But he has decided to try and make up with Sir Walter and Elizabeth and she has some hopes that he might consider marrying her, as he had paid court to her some years before. Anne is ambivalent about William. She wonders why he has now chosen to make up the quarrel and she finds him a little too snobbish for her tastes though he is pleasant and entertaining, and he seems to find her attractive. She has also met some of the Crofts' sailor friends who live nearby at Lyme Regis. Captain Harville is a married man with a family, who has not made a large fortune during the war... Another friend is James Benwick, who was engaged to Harville's sister but who lost her when she died a while earlier. Anne likes the sailor who are intelligent and pleasant and she is happy to socialise with them.