rd straw mattress,
two excessively coarse blankets, and a thick, shaggy, woollen rug for a
counterpane. There are not any sheets or pillow-cases; but a thick,
hard bolster, stuffed like the mattress with straw, serves for a pillow.

At the foot of the oak bedstead is a large oak chest, big enough to hold
a man, in which the owners keep all their small property of any value.
There are no chairs, but the deep windows have wooden seats, and two
wooden stools are in the corners. As to wardrobes, chests of drawers,
dressing-tables, and washstands, nobody knows of such things at that
day. The chest serves the purpose of all except the washstand, and they
find that (as much as they have of it) at the draw-well in the little
back yard. The window is just a square hole in the wall, closed with a
wooden shutter, so that light and air--if not wind and rain--come in
together. A looking-glass they have, but a poor makeshift it is, being
of metal and rounded; and those who know what a comical aspect your face
takes when you see it in a metal teapot, can guess how far anybody could
see himself rightly in it. It is nailed up, too, so high on the wall
that it is not easy to see anything. This is all the furniture of the
bedroom.

Downstairs there is more though there are no chairs and tables, unless a
leaf-table in the wall, which lets down, can go by that name. There are
two or three long settles stretching across the wall--the settle was
called a bench when it had a back to it, and a form if it had not.
There is a large bake-stone in one corner; the bread is put on the top
to bake, with the fire underneath, and when there is no fire, the top
can be used as a table, a moulding board, or in many other ways. But it
must not be supposed that such bread is in large square or cottage
loaves like ours. It is made in flat cakes, large or small, thick or
thin. By the side of the bake-stone is the sink, or rather that which
answers to one, being a rough brick basin, with a plug in the bottom,
and just beneath it is a little channel in the brick floor, by which,
when the plug is pulled up, the dirty water finds its way out into the
street under the house door. People who live in this way need--and
wear--short gowns and stout shoes.

The opposite corner holds the pine-torches and chips; they burn nothing
but wood, for though coal is known, it is very little used. This is
partly because it is expensive; but also because it is consid