This comes from a post on the `Persuasion' board which comments that Mrs Clay couldn't do much about her projecting front tooth. I wonder what teeth looked like in those days. I've posted a link below to an earlier discussion on tooth care, so we know that people did clean them.
There were false teeth: and here is a link to an article about Waterloo teeth (yuck!)
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/terrace/adw03/c-eight/france/teeth.htm
But what else could one do in those days to improve one's smile? I notice that in many portraits of the period, people -- especially older people -- are painted with their lips firmly closed, and have a sort of shrunken look about their mouths: was this because they'd lost their front teeth?
And could Mrs Clay have done anything?