Lady Osborne is the mother of Lord Osborne and Miss Osborne. She is nearly fifty, but she is very handsome and has the dignity of rank. She complains of her son's carelessness to Tom Musgrave.
She attends the assembly with a large party, and she pointedly announces they have come early for the sake of Charles Blake, even though they arrive when the first two dances are nearly over. She plays casino with Mr. Howard, and when Charles comes over to tell his uncle about Emma Watson, she glances up. She gives Emma a look of complacency when the Osborne party leaves early.
According to Cassandra Austen in Jane Austen: A Family Record, had the novel been completed, it would be revealed that Lady Osborne bore a passion for her son's former tutor Mr. Howard, and that would have caused strife in his courtship of Emma.