One of the fun things about this MT is finding out all the bits about JA's family life and history that she seems to have used in her novels. And here's one:

Colonel Brandon offers Edward Ferrars a living of around 200 pounds a year, including a small and indifferent house, but he considers this far too small an income for Edward to marry on. When Mrs Jennings finds out, she says, `The Colonel is a ninny, my dear; he has two thousand a-year himself, he thinks that nobody else can marry on less.'

We side with Mrs Jennings, don't we? After all, if George Austen had thought that he could not marry Cassandra Leigh on that sum, there would have been no Jane.