Definition of "stept"

The moment they stopt, a trollopy-looking maid-servant, seemingly in waiting for them at the door, stept forward, and more intent on telling the news, than giving them any help, immediately began with, “the Thrush is gone out of harbour, please Sir, and one of the officers has been here to”⸺

1814 July, [Jane Austen], chapter VII, in Mansfield Park: […], volume III, London: […] T[homas] Egerton, […], page 143

So Dangerfield's little dyspepsy had like to have cured one or other of the village leeches, for ever and a day, of the heart-ache and all other aches that flesh is heir to. For Dangerfield commenced with Toole: and that physician, on the third day of his instalment, found that Sturk had stept in and taken his patient bodily out of his hands.

1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard