Mrs. Jennings from the probability of wishing to throw
ridicule on his age.

"But at least, Mamma, you cannot deny the absurdity
of the accusation, though you may not think it intentionally
ill-natured. Colonel Brandon is certainly younger than
Mrs. Jennings, but he is old enough to be MY father;
and if he were ever animated enough to be in love,
must have long outlived every sensation of the kind.
It is too ridiculous! When is a man to be safe from such wit,
if age and infirmity will not protect him?"

"Infirmity!" said Elinor, "do you call Colonel Brandon
infirm? I can easily suppose that his age may appear much
greater to you than to my mother; but you can hardly
deceive yourself as to his having the use of his limbs!"

"Did not you hear him complain of the rheumatism?
and is not that the commonest infirmity of declining life?"

"My dearest child," said her mother, laughing,
"at this rate you must be in continual terror of MY decay;
and it must seem to you a miracle that my life has been
extended to the advanced age of forty."

"Mamma, you are not doing me justice. I know very well
that Colonel Brandon is not old enough to make his friends
yet apprehensive of losing him in the course of nature.
He may live twenty years longer. But thirty-five has
nothing to do with matrimony."