Originally posted by gingerharp:
though I do not like Nellie's character in the books after changes. She annoys me. Why cant she ever be happy. i feel she is rather ungrateful.
Anywho, it would be neat reading about them as young women.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">*spoilers*
I don't think that she is ungrateful, and she can be happy. It is just, imagine if you were her. Her entire life has been filled with uncertainty and instability. First she get moved to the Rylands house. Then she is sent back to her family. Then her family moves back. Then her parents die, and she is sent to live with her uncle who abandons her. She is sent to an orphange, then thankfully ends up with a safe family. This happens within a span of ten years of her life. She also has two young sisters too look after in her eyes. If I was her, I would want to go to a school that would teach skills for the workforce. Not that I wouldn't appreciate all the wealth that I was suddenly given access to in some sense, and I would be adopted into a wealthy family. She is not being ungrateful, she is thinking about her future, and the school she was going to with Samantha was to teach refinement as well as basic education. Nellie is not used to refinement, that is not her niche, she has a niche in working and helping people (hence the urge to want to teach and and help new immigrants). It is where she is comfortable, and I think Cornelia and Gard understood that, and did not see her as ungrateful. She was thinking about where her future was going to go and what would make her happy as a grown woman.