ery 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."

"To be sure, so it is. But they live very comfortably. They have no
indoors man, else they do not want for any thing; and Mrs. Martin talks
of taking a boy another year."

"I wish you may not get into a scrape, Harriet, whenever he does
marry;--I mean, as to being acquainted with his wife--for though his
sisters, from a superior education, are not to be altogether objected
to, it does not follow that he might marry any body at all fit for you
to notice. The misfortune of your birth ought to make you particularly
careful as to your associates. There can be no doubt of your being a
gentleman's daughter, and you must support your claim to that station by
every thing within your own power, or there will be plenty of people who
would take pleasure in degrading you."

"Yes, to be sure, I suppose there are. But while I visit at Hartfield,
and you are so kind to me, Miss Woodhouse, I am not afraid of what any
body can do."

"You understand the force of influence pretty well, Harriet; but I would
have you so firmly established in good society, as to be independent
even of Hartfield and Miss Woodhouse. I want to see you permanently
well connected, and to that end it wi