In the early days the English spelled quilt with a final _e_--quilte--as did the French. It is a cover or coverlet made by stitching together two thicknesses of a fabric with some soft substance between them. This applies to bed covers and also to quilted petticoats so commonly worn in the old days. What is a coverlet? Originally, any covering for a bed; now, specifically, the outer covering. The word comes from the French _couvre-lit_--a bed covering. The handwoven coverlets of many beautiful designs, in blue and white and red and brown, are well known and formerly were woven everywhere. The _counter-pane_, formerly a bed cover, now describes a light coverlet woven of cotton with raised figures. The word is a corruption of _counterpoint_, in allusion to the panes or squares of which bed covers are often composed. The counterpane was never quilted. The _bedspread_ and the _bed cover_ may be considered as one and the same--the uppermost covering of a bed and accordingly of an ornamental character in general. The _comforter_ was a thickly quilted bed cover made of several thicknesses of sheet cotton or wool prepared for the purpose. This was too thick to be quilted so it was knotted at regular intervals to prevent the interlining from slipping out of place. Frequently it was called a "comfort." There is one other name that was applied to a bed covering in the Colonial times but which is never heard today in that connection. In the days immediately following the settlement many a New England bed was covered with a _rug_. When William Clarke of Salem died in 1647, in the parlor of his house was a bed with a green rug covering it which was valued by the appraisers at fourteen shillings. The term was commonly in use at the time, in fact, as commonly as the word coverlet. In the probate of Essex County, Massachusetts, estates between the years 1635 and 1674, coverlets are mentioned one hundred and forty-two times and rugs one hundred and fifty-seven times while quilts are listed only four times. These early bed rugs were usually thick woolen coverings with a shaggy nap.