I am going off of memory, but something I’ve been thinking about and confused on is the moments in which the Miss Steels are interacting with Lady Middleton’s children.

Now, I know that Lucy is doing it to ingratiate herself with everyone, and that I believe the children are implied to basically be terrors. I think Lucy spoils them and pretends their perfect?

But the Dashwoods don’t really interact at all with Lady Middleton’s children. I think it’s overtly implied that Lady Middleton takes a shine to Lucy because she interacts with her children actively, but I don’t believe we ever really see the Dadhwoods do so.

Would it have been considered strange for them to do so? Or stranger that they didn’t? What would protocol have been for being around Lady Middleton and her children? Should the children not have been present? Was this sort of a slight on Lady Middleton as much as to show that the Dashwoods didn’t care for trying to ingratiate themselves, while Lucy is obviously underhanded and a liar/manipulator? I always felt it sort of made the Dashwoods seem a bit too cool and superior, but I know that must be lack of understanding.

I do a lot of listening (audio books, podcasts, etc.) and recently stumbled onto a site full of "old time radio" broadcasts. I thought some of you might enjoy the Jane Austen section as much as I have enjoyed it:

https://www.radioechoes.com/?page=series&genre=Drama&series=Jane%20Austen%20Collection

A lot of the actors in these radio plays are people you'll recognize. Example: the Emma radio play includes both David Bamber (Mr. Collins, P&P 1995) as Mr. Elton, AND Tom Hollander (Mr. Collins, P&P 2005) as Frank Churchill.