Yet in 1647, when he married the widow Coytemore, he seems to have had no hesitation in accepting with her a rich dowry, her share of the estate of her former husband, and valued at £640 1_s_ 8_d_. Among the items were such frivolities as "a silver girdle and a silk iacket." There must have been also other choice garments in the many chests and trunks enumerated. One of these chests is specified as "spruce." The widow had a brave stock of pewter, worth £135, and among other goods unusual at this period were, "1 chest of drawers £1 a copp. furnace £1 10_s._ A parcel of cheney platters and soucers £1 2 flaskets A bedstead, trundle bed with ropes and mats." [Illustration: Figure 46. RUSH-BOTTOMED CHAIRS.] It is a matter of wonder how the governor reconciled his conscience to the silver girdle and "iacket," for in 1634 the Massachusetts General Court had particularly prohibited the wearing of either "gold or silver girdles, hattbands, belts, ruffs, and beaver hatts." Also they forbade the purchase of "any appell, either wollen, silke, or lynnen with any lace on it, silver golde, silke or threed." They were only allowed one "slash" on each sleeve and one on the back. These rules were operative for many years, for in Salem, in 1653, a man is haled before the court for excess "in bootes, rebonds, gould, and silver lace." In Newbury, Mass., in 1653, two women were brought before the court for wearing "a silk hood and scarfe," but both were discharged for proving their husbands were worth over £100. John Hutchin's wife was also discharged "upon testimony of her being brought up above the ordinary ranke." These items show that both rank and property were saving grace even among the Puritans, and no doubt Mrs. Winthrop escaped censure under this rule. Boston, about 1650, had houses partly of brick and partly of stone, as well as plainer wooden ones. In 1640 John Davys built for William Rix, a weaver, a house "16 feet long and 14 feet wide, with a chamber floare finished with summer and ioysts." There was also a cellar, the walls were covered with clapboards, and the chimney was made of hewn timber, daubed. The whole house cost £21. This was a typical house of a workingman, and must have required little furniture besides the loom to fill it. The fine houses with ample halls and large rooms were but the forerunners of that comfortable style we call by the name Colonial. But they were precious things when once built, and it is by no means uncommon to find them parcelled out to different relatives. In 1658 John Greene of Warwick, R. I., gives to his beloved wife-- --"a large hall and chimni with a little chamber adjoining to the hall, as also a large chamber with a little chamber within y^t, with a large garret and with a little dary room which buttes against ye oule house during her life; also half ye orchard."