and is, therefore, in one sense, as much above my notice as in every
other he is below it."

"To be sure. Oh yes! It is not likely you should ever have
observed him; but he knows you very well indeed--I mean by sight."

"I have no doubt of his being a very respectable young man.
I know, indeed, that he is so, and, as such, wish him well.
What do you imagine his age to be?"

"He was four-and-twenty the 8th of last June, and my birthday is
the 23rd just a fortnight and a day's difference--which is very odd."

"Only four-and-twenty. That is too young to settle. His mother is
perfectly right not to be in a hurry. They seem very comfortable
as they are, and if she were to take any pains to marry him,
she would probably repent it. Six years hence, if he could meet
with a good sort of young woman in the same rank as his own,
with a little money, it might be very desirable."

"Six years hence! Dear Miss Woodhouse, he would be thirty years old!"

"Well, and that is as early as most men can afford to marry,
who are not born to an independence. Mr. Martin, I imagine,
has his fortune entirely to make--cannot be at all beforehand with
the world. Whatever money he might come into when his father died,
whatever his share of the family property, it is, I dare say,
all afloat, all employed in his stock, and so forth; and though,
with diligence and good luck, he may be rich in time, it is next to
impossible that he should have realised any thing yet."