In this moment, Maria, like Adeline, found solace in nature and was emotionally affected by it. I think this provides yet another example of Wollstonecraft's use of a common assertion of women. This runs parallel with the idea of the "Cult of Sensibility."
Wollstonecraft immediately disrupted this moment of felicity by reminding Maria of her institutionalization; "[The] autumnal scent, wafted by the breeze of morn from the fallen leaves of the adjacent wood, made her recollect that the season had changed since her confinement" (pg 177). This example shows that when Maria attempts to transcend her material conditions, she is only reminded of it even more.
I find that this detraction and re-realization of Maria's own material conditions subverts the notion of the "Cult of Sensibility" that Wollstonecraft abhorred. By subverting and challenging these assumptions, Wollstonecraft is telling her audience that decadence, idealism, and excessive indulgence to the senses is simply not enough to free oneself from their material/social conditions within society.
During class we discussed what effect is created by starting the novel in Maria's mind. Now that you've mentioned how Wollstonecraft works against the cult of sensibility, I feel like those first two pages do just that. At first, Maria is distraught and her thoughes are scattered, but then after a couple of days, she calms down and starts to think rationally about her situation as she "braced her mind to fortitude,"(2nd page). Wollstonecraft does not try to argue that women are not overcome by bouts of sensibility, but rather that there is more to them than just that. Take the example that you gave of Maria at the window. She is overcome by emotion at scene, but then she is brought back to her senses by remembering where she is. Wollstonecraft shows that women can have both sense and sensibility.
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