I feel my mind can rest at peace now. I reckon JA did have nice nails and cleaned, filed and buffed them a bit, but not for an excessive two hours a day. She may even have had a little manicure kit. (Thanks Elena)

I also conclude that the Austens ate bread as big whitish loaves probably made at home by the "help". (Wonder where they got yeast from? bakers?). Rolls were posh and they might have been served at Godmersham as well as Stoneleigh. Toast was cut slices from a home-baked loaf stuck on a toasting fork in font of fire (Thanks to Linden, Captain E & Sylvia).

Suddenly remembered that JA actually writes quite a bit about toast in Sanditon. Arthur "invalid" Parker "turning completely to the fire, sat coddling and cooking it to his own satisfaction and toasting some slices of bread, brought up ready-prepared in the toast-rack."

Arthur then drinks very strong cocoa and then tries to entice Charlotte to eat toast "I reckon myself a very good toaster; I never burn my toasts - I never put them too near the fire at first - and yet, you see there is not a corner but what is well-browned." (He then goes on to demonstrate that he is as abstemious with butter as he is with his cocoa).

So what is "ready-prepared" toast? Pre-sliced? And what is a toast-rack? (And obviously Arthur was using a fork, not using some sort of fixed grate thing - see StewartMcI interesting vertical grate suggestion - see cheesey posts above).

One thing is clear. JA's Mum thought dry toast suitable for invalids. JA thought invalids who spread their toast with butter were indulgent hypochondriacs and fooling nobody. Who would have thought JA had so much to say about toast?