he girls delighted to play in the
open air, with little regard to grace or decorum; a game called tennis
ball was popular. The milkwomen had their dances, into which they
entered with zest. Pets were in favor with the ladies almost as much
as in the former century, and exploration into new countries had
increased the variety of them. In the prints of the times, ladies are
often represented with monkeys in attendance on them.

With the great multiplicity of new fashions, in novelties in customs
and in costumes, in manners and even in morals, there came into vogue,
from the East, hot, or, as they were called, "sweating baths." They
became very common throughout England, and the places where they
were to be gotten were commonly called "hothouses," although their
Persian name of _hummums_ was also preserved. Ben Jonson represents
a character in the old play _The Puritan_ as saying in regard to a
laborious undertaking: "Marry, it will take me much sweat; I were
better to go to sixteen _hothouses_." They became the rendezvous of
women, who resorted to them for gossip and company. The rude manners
of the age were not conducive to the preservation of these places from
the illicit intrigues which made them notorious, and caused the name
"hothouse" to become a synonym for "brothel." It was their acquired
character that probably led eventually to their disuse. They were not
necessarily vicious, and they furnished a convenience for the sex, who
did not have the shops and clubs of to-day as places for meeting and
the interchange of small talk. It must be remembered that the taverns
supplied this need for the men, but, excepting in the case of the
lower orders of society, the women had no similar place for such
social intercourse as was secured to the men by their tavern clubs.
The hothouses were not simply bath houses of the modern Turkish type,
but were restaurants as well. While seated in the steaming bath,
refreshments and lunch were served on tables conveniently arranged for
the purpose, and, after ablutions, the women remained as long as they
cared to, in conversation. The picnics which had formerly taken place
at the tavern were transferred to the hot bath, each of the women
carrying to the feast contributions which were shared in common.
This practice, which began with the servant maids, passed to their
mistresses and on up the scale of society, and became fashionable
for the ladies of the higher circles. In the absence of th