While everyone else is staggering about like zombies, only Anne keeps her brains and gets Louisa medical attention. A fun time is had by all (even Benwick seems to be enjoying himself once he finds out that Anne has read some of his favorite odes to depression), until Louisa tries to show off by leaping off a staircase into Wentworth's arms, but instead takes a headfirst dive into the pavement.

As a bonus, they get to meet Harville's cheerful family and his depressed friend, Captain Benwick, who is working through the death of his fiancée by reading the saddest poetry he can find. Anne and the Musgroves go to the nearby seaside village of Lyme Regis with Wentworth to visit his old friend Captain Harville. Not only is he still angry at Anne for dumping him, but he's doing some intense flirting with her cousin-in-law, Louisa Musgrove. Things start to get more exciting (and more awkward) when Captain Wentworth comes to visit his sister. Anne goes to stay first with Lady Russell, and then with the youngest of the Elliot clan, Mary, who is married with children to Charles Musgrove. Clay head off to the fashionable town of Bath where they can show off more cheaply than at home. Back in the present, Anne's snobby dad Sir Walter, her equally snobby older sister Elizabeth, and Elizabeth's hanger-on Mrs. Meanwhile, Wentworth has struck it rich, but has never gotten back in touch. Eventually Lady Russell persuaded Anne to break it off with Wentworth, and Anne has been kicking herself ever since. Wentworth's service in the navy, however, didn't give him enough steady income or social status to please Anne's family and her mentor, Lady Russell. In fact, eight years ago Wentworth and the middle Elliot daughter, Anne, had hit it off so well that, after dating for a few months, they were already talking marriage.

Croft's brother, Captain Wentworth, is not. While the Crofts are total strangers to the Elliots, it turns out Mrs. And so the Elliots move out, and the newly rich Admiral Croft and his wife move in. The duct-tape patching job they've been doing on their finances is finally falling apart, so they come up with a last-ditch plan: move out of the ancestral mansion and rent out the place to someone else to increase their income.

Their sense of how important they are has long been larger than their bank account allows. The Elliots of Kellynch Hall, a family of minor nobility, are in financial trouble.

Persuasion jane austen sparknotes