On getting a husband in Bath
Alert Janeite Kathleen B. sent us a paragraph from the book Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery that mentions Jane Austen:
The Spooners lived at Elmdon hall and had a second home in Bath. But suddenly their Barbara no longer skittered along to each ball and assembly, as she must do. What was the blessed point of being in Bath at all if not to display to eligible bachelors one’s marriageable daughters? And there was a giggling queue of Spooner girls just behind Barbara who needed marrying off once she’d been settled. But now she’d gone Methodist. Her parents surely feared she would end an old maid–their beautiful Barbara! It is no wonder Jane Austen set several of her novels in Bath during this time. One can almost hear Mrs. Spooner assaulting the ears of her dear husband with keening lamentations over their unprecedented tragedy: “O! Mr. Spooner! Our dear girl has gone Methodist–Methodist! And she the prettiest of the bunch! O! What shall we do now? O! Mr. Spooner. I tell you we are ruined–ruined! Call the apothecary! O!”
Jane would just have married her off to Mr. Collins. 
