Fanny Thornton

Fanny Thornton is John Thornton's younger sister, a bright, chattering presence in the family's Milton household who cares far more for fashion, gossip and a good match than for the mills that built her comfort. Silly and self-absorbed by her own family's exacting standards, she wants ease, admiration and a husband who can provide both.

Jo Joyner plays her as pure comic relief against so much grim industrial seriousness, all fluttering enthusiasm and tone-deaf remarks, and the writing uses her shallowness to sharpen everyone around her: her mother's steel, her brother's restraint, and Margaret's growing sense of just how differently a Milton lady might have turned out.