The Truth Revealed — Sense and Sensibility

After the Palmers leave, Sir John and Mrs. Jennings import new company: the Steele sisters, Lucy and Anne, Mrs. Jennings's relations met at Exeter. Lady Middleton dreads unknown guests but is won over when the sisters flatter her children and admire her house. Sir John drags the Dashwoods to the Park, where Lucy proves pretty and clever while Anne is vulgar and obsessed with beaux. The Steeles court Lady Middleton with theatrical devotion to her noisy offspring; Marianne finds the performance absurd, and Elinor supplies polite lies her sister will not speak.

Anne's chatter about Norland and smart young men exposes the sisters' curiosity about the Dashwoods' situation. Sir John cannot resist sharing family secrets and whispers that Elinor's favorite begins with Ferrars. Lucy claims to know Edward slightly through her uncle, then corrects Anne's boast of intimacy in a way that strikes Elinor as ill-natured and significant. Forced proximity begins: Sir John considers daily meetings intimacy enough, and Anne soon congratulates Elinor on Marianne's conquest of a handsome beau. Lucy Steele arrives already marked as a social climber with an unexplained thread back to Edward's hidden past. Lucy soon steers conversation toward Edward with a familiarity that alarms Elinor.