Sense and Sensibility, chapters 36-40

Like a master torturer, Austen keeps coming up with new ways to throw her characters together in mutual mortification. The latest gambit involves Charlotte Palmer giving birth, so that her mother, Mrs. Jennings, rushes off to be at her side—handing her houseguests, the Dashwood sisters, into the care of her other daughter, Lady Middleton, who is also hosting the Miss Steeles. Mrs. Jennings can't help congratulating herself on having come up with this arrangement; she's blissfully...