A gentleman, unless he belonged to one of the accepted professions (the law, the church, the army or the navy), had a great deal of time every day to be filled with activities, some more obviously useful than others. The same can be said of the ladies of Austen's world, though the professions were barred to them. Women's pursuits and pastimes were mostly indoor and domestic, men's outdoor and sporting. But there was also time spent together – walking or driving outdoors, or the many indoors occupations described below: all of which provided opportunities for flirtation, gossip and even occasionally self-improvement.

Most houses had several sitting-rooms, in one of which the ladies of the household would gather after breakfast to ‘work’. By this is meant needlework, an accomplishment which was both useful and artistic, and which was considered a necessity for women of all social classes. Jane Austen herself was a fine needlewoman, working purses and huswifes (a small cloth bag containing needles, thread and other necessities) as well as trimming her bonnets, sewing her own clothing, and making shirts for her brothers and clothes for the poor. If visitors called, it was often considered more genteel to continue with one's ‘fancywork’ rather than ‘plain’ shirt-making or mending. Fancywork included embroidery, carpet- or rug-work (on canvas), knotting (thread ‘knotted at regular intervals by means of an oval shuttle … to form a narrow trimming – the knots resembling a string of small beads’1) and netting (making meshes with a shuttle, out of silk or heavier materials). ‘Fillagree-work’ (S&S, 2:1), making little ornaments out of slips of rolled paper, was an intricate yet pointless craft, entirely appropriate for the self serving Lucy Steele.

When not doing needlework, women might spend hours improving their accomplishments, generally either music or drawing and watercolour painting. Music might include not only practice of an instrument (generally piano or harp) and singing, but also copying out music from published sources for later study.