Gentle Reader,
While your life may have included many years of study at institutions known as an elementary school, a middle school, and a high school, Miss Pickworth and her peers profess no such dreary efforts at education. Children during the Regency may go to charity or church-run day schools, but these are not attended by the offspring of good Society. Genteel children are educated at home by their parents or by governesses and masters brought in for that purpose. Only males attend actual schools such as Eton or Cambridge, where they study Greek, Latin, literature, philosophy, mathematics, and that sort of folderol.

Proper young ladies are asked to become accomplished. To do this, they must study dancing, poetry, religion, and needlework. They must learn to play musical instruments and sing well. They must become skilled at painting and drawing. Wit and wisdom in writing a good letter cannot be underestimated. They may learn to speak the non-Classical languages of French and Italian. But most important, as our beloved Mr. Darcy of Pride and Prejudice says, a woman "must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading." And what better to read, Miss Pickworth ponders, than a book featuring her estimable self?

As to why these accomplishments matter ... well, my dear, if one has to ask, one certainly can never hope to understand the reason.