Persuasion question

I found that the punctuation in Persuasion was rather strange. (The overuse of commas was frankly alarming.) I understand that the rules of grammar were in flux back when Jane Austen was writing, but it was the quotation marks that really puzzled me. I didn't notice this in Pride and Prejudice, but in Persuasion there were quite a few instances where quotation marks were placed around a description of dialogue rather than actual dialogue.

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Some examples:

They were only asked, she was sure, because Lady Dalrymple being kept at home by a bad cold, was glad to make use of the relationship which had been so pressed on her,--and she declined on her own account with great alacrity--"She was engaged to spend the evening with an old schoolfellow."

He was gone--he had disappeared: she felt a moment's regret. But "they should meet again. He would look for her--he would find her out long before the evening wee over--and at present, perhaps, it was as well to be asunder. She was in need of a little interval for recollection."

She wondered, and questioned him eagerly--but in vain. He delighted in being asked, but he would not tell. "No, no--some time or other perhaps, but not now. He would mention no names now; but such, he could assure her, had been the fact. He had many years ago received such a description of Miss Anne Elliot, as had inspired him with the highest idea of her merit, and excited the warmest curiosity to know her."

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With regard to the first and third quotes, obviously Jane Austen's characters didn't go around referring to themselves in the third person. And the second quote is merely describing Anne's thoughts.

So I'm wondering if this sort of thing was common back then, or if it's unique to Jane Austen. Does anyone know?