were spent. It was raised high upon the head and powdered thick; "the
hair dressers," says Higginson, "were kept so busy on the day of any
fashionable entertainment, that ladies sometimes had to employ their
services at four or five in the morning, and had to sit upright all the
rest of the day, in order to avoid disturbing the head-dress."

[Sidenote: Amusements.]

Although our ancestors did not possess the variety of amusements which
now exists, their life was far from a humdrum one. Theatres were
tabooed, but were beginning to hold their ground here and there, though
not, we may be sure, in New England. There were, however, private
theatricals and charades, which became at one period very much in vogue
in the aristocratic houses of New York and Philadelphia. Concerts were
often held, and in the country many old-time English festivals, such as
May Day, were kept up. The most frequent and fashionable amusements of
that time were balls and parties. We hear of the gentlemen and dames
going to "routs" in their sedan chairs, much as they did in the old
country: arriving at eight--they kept better hours than our modern
fashionable people--they would dance the staid and stately minuet and
the gayer contra-dance, to the music mainly of fiddles, till midnight,
and then separate, horrified at the lateness of the hour.

[Sidenote: Imitations of the English.]

Indeed, we are able to see in the habits of the American upper classes
a distinct imitation of London fashions, despite the quarrel with the
British. The whole etiquette of patrician society was based upon that
of the English court, just as the law administered in the courts was
borrowed from that dispensed at Westminster. It is interesting to note