...And at twenty-one, she was probably getting rather old and anxious to get married.

] "Being now in her twenty-first year, Maria Bertram was beginning to think matrimony a duty" - and she was a baronet's daughter with adequate dowry.

This would place Jane and Lizzy Bennet somewhere near that odious shelf concept too. I never thought of them getting "too old", but I guess the borderline was drawn somewhere between 27(Charlotte Lucas) and err... 23 then? Well, we already knew Mrs Bennet wasn't just hysteric. Sorry, Austensibly misplaced thought.