Note 1: (huswife)
A huswife is a cloth roll which contains a woman's tools, such as needles and scissors, and is similar to rolls used for jewely or toiletries today.
Note 2: (and crosses half)
Because paper was a scarce and expensive commodity, and because the Post charged the recipient of a piece of mail according to how many pages had been sent, paper was conserved by writing the full page first, then literally turning the page a quarter turn (90 degrees) and writing accross the earlier writing. As Mrs. Bates notes, this makes it difficult to read and a challenge to Miss Bates.
Note 3: (different kingdoms)
Miss Bates makes a correction here from different kingdoms to differnt countries.
The editor of these notes is not entirely certain why this correction is made.
Perhaps here Miss Bates is a little behind the times in the first instance. England ruled, or attempted to rule, over Ireland in varying degrees for centuries, but in 1801 the union was made official, and Ireland became a full part of the United Kingdom–not a separate one. Emma probably takes place in 1814-1815, which would made it more than a decade since the union had taken place.
If this is the reason for the correction, then the term countries would also need to be examined, because the union would have meant that they were now, politically, one country. It is possible that the term is used in this novel in a way similar to the use of nation today. Today, nation is taken to mean a group of people–e.g. the Sioux nation or the Scottish nation–and does not refer to a political division. Thus Ireland was always a separate nation, a separate ethnicity; though they had been part of the political entity of the United Kingdom.
Another possiblity is that because Ireland had been ruled by local cheifs and not by a unified king, the term kingdom did not properly apply.
(At the time of the union in 1801, the British flag, the United Jack, was altered to include a red "X" to represent St. Patrick and the Irish component of the country–this is the flag still in use today.)
(In 1922, after many rebellions, a treaty was accepted in Ireland and in Great Britain which gave most of Ireland self-rule. Complete independence was achieved in 1949. This excepts Northern Ireland, which today remains under rule of the United Kingdom; though, there is a new Northern Ireland Assembly which came into being as a part of the Good Friday Agreement several years ago.)