“Since ye departed,” she says, “my cousin Calthorpe sent me a letter complaining in his writing that forasmuch as he cannot be paid of his tenants as he hath been before this time, he proposeth to lessen his household, and to live the straitlier, wherefore he desireth me to purvey for your sister Anne; he saith she waxeth high (_grows tall_), and it were time to purvey her a marriage. I marvel what causeth him to write so now, either she hath displeased him, or else he hath taken her with default; therefore I pray you commune with my cousin Clare at London, and weet (_learn_) how he is disposed to her-ward, and send me word, for I shall be fain to send for her, and with me she shall but lose her time, and without she will be the better occupied she shall oftentimes move (_vex_) me and put me in great inquietness; remember what labour I had with your sister, therefore do your part to help her forth, that may be to your worship and mine.” There certainly appears here no great affection between mother and daughter. Among other lessons, the ladies appear to have been taught to be very demure and formal in their behaviour in company. Our cut No. 250 represents a party of ladies and gentlemen in the parlour engaged in conversation. It is taken from an illumination in the manuscript of the romance of the “Comte d’Artois,” formerly in the possession of M. Barrois. They are all apparently seated on benches, which seem in this instance to be made like long chests, and placed along the sides of the wall as if they served also for lockers. These appear to be the only articles of furniture in the room. There is a certain conventional position in most of the ladies of the party which has evidently been taught, even to the holding of the hands crossed. The four ladies with the gentleman between them are no doubt intended to be the attendants on the lady of the house, holding towards her the position of Elizabeth and Anne Paston. We have precisely the same conventional forms in the next cut (No. 251), which is taken from an illumination in a manuscript of the “Legenda Aurea,” in the National Library in Paris (No. 6889). We see here the same demureness and formal crossing of the hands among the young ladies, in presence of their dame. It may be observed that, in almost all the contemporary pictures of domestic scenes, the men, represented as visitors, keep their hats on their heads. [Illustration: _No. 250. A Conversation Scene._] [Illustration: _No. 251. A Social Group of the Fifteenth Century._]