The lady seated on this chest appears to be wrapping up the new-born infant in swaddling-clothes; a custom which, as I have remarked on a former occasion, and as we shall see again further on, prevailed universally till a comparatively recent period. Infants thus wrapped up are frequently seen in the illuminated manuscripts; and their appearance is certainly anything but picturesque. We have an exception in one of the sculptures on the columns of the Hôtel de Ville at Brussels (represented in our cut No. 258), which also furnishes us with a curious example of a cradle of the latter part of the fifteenth century. [Illustration: _No. 258. A Cradle._] It will, no doubt, have been remarked that in these cuts we observe no traces of carpets on the floor. In our cut No. 256, the floor is evidently boarded; but more generally, as in our cuts Nos. 257, 260, and 261, it appears chequered, or laid out in small squares, which may be intended to represent tiles, or perhaps parquetry. There is more evidence of tapestried or painted walls; although this kind of ornamentation is only used partially, and chiefly in the dwellings of the richer classes. The walls in the chamber in cut No. 257 appear to be painted. In the same cut we have an example of an ornamental mat. The most important article of furniture in the chamber was the bed, which began now to be made much more ornamental than in previous times. We have seen in the former period the introduction of the canopy and its curtains, under which the head of the bed was placed. The _celure_, or roof, of the canopy, was now often enlarged, so as to extend over the whole bed; and it, as well as the _tester_, or back, was often adorned with the arms of the possessor, with religious emblems, with flowers, or with some other ornament. There were also sometimes _costers_, or ornamental cloths for the sides of the bed. The curtains, sometimes called by the French word _ridels_, were attached edgeways to the tester, and were suspended sometimes by rings, so as to draw backwards and forwards along a pole; but more frequently, to judge by the illuminations, they were fixed to the celure in the same manner as to the tester, and were drawn up with cords. At the two corners of the celure portions of curtain were left hanging down like bags. The curtains which draw up are represented in our cuts Nos. 259 and 260. Those in cuts Nos. 261 and 262, if not in Nos. 256 and 257, are evidently drawn along poles with rings. The latter method is thus alluded to in the old metrical romance of “Sir Degrevant:”-- _That was a mervelle thynge,_ _To se the riddels hynge,_ _With many red golde rynge_ _That thame up bare._