If the wife is an heiress, he bears her arms not impaled in the usual way, but on a small shield, called an escutcheon of pretence, in the middle of his own. An heiress, in the heraldic sense, does not mean a lady possessed of wealth; it merely means an only daughter. A co-heiress is a woman who has sisters, but no brother. The children of an heiress or co-heiress are entitled to quarter her arms - that is to say, they divide their shield or lozenge into four equal portions, on the first and fourth of which they bear their father's arms, and on the second and third their mother's.

A married woman or a widow bears her arms impaled with her husband's, exactly as he does, only on a lozenge.

If a married man is a member of an order of knighthood he uses two shields, one of them bearing his own arms only, decorated with the insignia of the order, whatever it may be, and the other bearing his own arms and his wife's impaled in the ordinary way. This is because the order is a personal thing, and one in which the wife does not share. Bishops, in the same way, bear the arms of their see on a separate shield.

All this doubtless sounds to the neophyte very intricate, and perhaps unworthy of attention, and to the experienced herald so hackneyed as to be unnecessary to repeat. There may, however, be some readers who will not be above glancing at this explanation, which I have made as plain and simple as I can.