![]() ![]() Austin is outraged that his naïve daughter is being duped and is deaf to Catherine's earnest pleas that she is in love, forbidding the marriage. Montgomery's reticence to condemn her wastrel brother. Austin's suspicion that Morris is after Catherine's substantial inheritance is confirmed, despite Mrs. Instead of having her suitor request her father's permission as convention dictates, Catherine announces her engagement to Austin, who then sends for Morris' sister, Mrs. Catherine accepts without hesitation, despite Morris' warning that her father may think he is a mercenary because he is unemployed, uneducated and frittered away his inheritance in Paris. One night, Lavinia ignores Austin's request that she chaperone them, and when she leaves Morris and Catherine alone together, he proposes. Morris becomes a frequent visitor at the Sloper home during the ensuing week, and Austin is reservedly pleased that someone is taking an interest in his spinster daughter. Although she is clumsy, Morris is deferential and full of flattery, and before the evening's end, he asks to see her again. Arthur's handsome and charming cousin Morris surprises Catherine by asking her to dance. That night at a party, Austin's other sister, Elizabeth Almond, and her husband Jefferson, announce the engagement of their daughter Marian to Arthur Townsend, an eligible bachelor. In the mid-1800's, in New York's Washington Square, wealthy widowed physician Austin Sloper bemoans the fact that although his daughter Catherine has had superior schooling and training, she lacks the refined qualities of her beautiful mother, and is "an entirely mediocre creature." Austin consequently asks his sister, widow Lavinia Penniman, to encourage his homely daughter to become more social.
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