I did have to feel a bit for Elizabeth in these opening chapters. She's starting to feel all of her 29 years, and stuck with a father who has a blatant horror of any sign of aging. The narrator chimes in with this repetition, too, to reinforce the reader's understanding, perhaps, of the unlucky rut Elizabeth is in [ch. 1]:

Thirteen years had seen her mistress of Kellynch Hall, presiding and directing with a self-possession and decision which could never have given the idea of her being younger than she was. For thirteen years had she been doing the honours, and laying down the domestic law at home, and leading the way to the chaise-and-four, and walking immediately after Lady Russell out of all the drawing-rooms and dining-rooms in the country. Thirteen winters' revolving frosts had seen her opening every ball of credit which a scanty neighbourhood afforded; and thirteen springs shewn their blossoms, as she travelled up to London with her father, for a few weeks annual enjoyment of the great world. She had the remembrance of all this, she had the consciousness of being nine-and-twenty, to give her some regrets and some apprehensions...