She must be forty; she says she is thirty-six, and of course she has every right to say so.

But I swear I judge her intellectually, simply from the metaphysical point of view; there is a sort of symbolism sprung up between us, a sort of algebra or what not! I don't understand it! Well, that's all nonsense.

Only, seeing that you are not a student now and have lost your lessons and your clothes, and that through the young lady's death she has no need to treat you as a relation, she suddenly took fright; and as you hid in your den and dropped all your old relations with her, she planned to get rid of you.
And she's been cherishing that design a long time, but was sorry to lose the I O U, for you assured her yourself that your mother would pay." "It was base of me to say that....

My mother herself is almost a beggar...

and I told a lie to keep my lodging...