“ The flower seeds are coming up, but your mignionette makes a wretched appearance!”

“Dame Bushell washes for only one week more, John Steven’s wife then undertakes our purification – she does not look as if anything she touches would ever be clean, but who knows?”

“Have you remembered to collect pieces for the patchwork? We are now at a standstill….”

“Does butcher’s meat keep up at the same price? And is bread not lower than 2/6?’

“We dine at half after three, and have done dinner I suppose before you begin….”

“It was a pleasant evening and rather more amusing than I expected. There were only 12 dances, of which I danced 9 and was merely prevented from dancing the rest by want of a partner. We began at 10, supped at 1, and were home before 5. The room was tolerably full, and there were perhaps 30 couple of dancers. The melancholy part was to see so many women standing without partners – and each of them with two ugly naked shoulders!”

From gardening before breakfast to a last letter before bed, spend a day with Jane Austen to see the world behind the novels.”