The oriel window or bay window was another Mediæval invention, and it would be difficult to find a feature more conducive to comfort and cheerfulness. It is often very sensibly translated into other styles; but, like the fireplace and the chimney, it belongs to the style of those “_comfortless_” ages of which we are treating. The dormer window is another invention of this _window_ age. The high roof was not to be thrown away--it must be utilised by being formed into attic storeys; windows, therefore, must be contrived wholly or in part in the roofs. Hence that highly picturesque and useful feature, which, though like the oriel, now translated into other styles, was invented in the middle ages, and, like all their inventions, originated in common sense. I have spoken of the construction of floors, but omitted to notice the ceilings. Great scope was given to variety in their treatment. Sometimes all the timbers were shown, and, perhaps, decorated with colour, the wood-work being more or less ornamented, as the character of the building demanded. For lofty rooms this often gives a noble covering; in other cases, the beams and binding joists are shown, and the intervening spaces panelled; in others, again, the whole is panelled, and in each case any amount of decorative painting used which might be desired. There is no doubt that the ceilings in Gothic buildings were, in many cases, the types which suggested those of the earlier Renaissance buildings before people began to imitate stone construction in plaster, and to make quasi-constructive features in hollow cradling. In the middle ages, either constructive parts were exposed to view, or the decorations which concealed them were designed simply _as decorations_, without in any degree professing to be constructive--plain honest common sense being the ruling principle, as it ought to be, and once was in other styles.