[I'm glad you saved these great posts - they remind me of the thread you started on Lizzy comparing the Bingley sisters and Darcy to Gilpin's cows in the P&P group read. Brilliant.

Not that I would call Miss Bates a cow, but I've put this post here because its about friends and ch3.]

"I suppose you have heard of the handsome letter Mr Frank Churchill has written to Mrs Weston? I understand it was a very handsome letter, indeed. Mr Woodhouse told me of it. Mr Woodhouse saw the letter, and he says he never saw such a handsome letter." (2)

And what would you call this? Free direct discourse? It could be attributed to any (perhaps all) of Highbury's morning visitors, bar Mrs Weston and Mr Woodhouse, but the proximity of their names to this quote make Mrs Perry, Mrs and Miss Bates the most likely persons to utter these four sentences.
My bet is on Miss Bates because I am not sure Mrs Perry would be high enough on the social scale to visit Mr Woodhouse, or that Mrs Bates would hear the details of who had seen and who had written, and Miss Bates is "a big talker upon little matters, which exactly suited Mr Woodhouse, full of trivial communications and harmless gossip"(3)