During the first months of her stay in London she made her home--with her mother and stepfather, who were with her constantly--in Maida Vale, a secluded spot where she was free from intrusion and noise. She made many quick expeditions to scenes made famous by Dickens, and went again to Stratford. After a while, however, she moved to a larger house in Kensington, and here London society, at its best, began to find her out. As in America, the choicest spirits seemed naturally to gravitate toward her. To her informal Sunday afternoon receptions came artists, literary men, and statesmen. The “little bent figure with its great kind heart” of the novelist Wilkie Collins became familiar; Alma-Tadema, the artist, was another; W. S. Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan, and author of _Pygmalion and Galatea_, naturally took a personal interest in that play, and wrote for Miss Anderson a new “curtain-raiser” for it, _Comedy and Tragedy_. Browning she frequently met and he seemed to her more like one of the old-school Southern gentlemen than a mystic poet. Either during this first season or the next she numbered among her friends Mrs. Humphrey Ward, James Russell Lowell, then American ambassador, Edmund Gosse, Lord Lytton, the artist Watts, Gladstone, the novelist William Black, Cardinal Newman, and Tennyson. She enjoyed to the full the art galleries of London, the opportunities to hear the best music, and all the various activities and interests which make London the capital of the English-speaking world. Mary Anderson’s success in London was duplicated when she appeared elsewhere in the British Isles. She was enthusiastically received in Edinburgh and in Manchester. In Dublin, the good-natured crowd every night took the horses from her carriage and dragged it through the streets, while those running alongside shouted “Hurrah for America!” and “God bless our Mary!” It was in Dublin, too, that the ingenious “gallery gods” sent baskets of flowers down to the stage over a rope. _Romeo and Juliet_ was the play determined upon for the next season in London. A trip to Verona in quest of local data and sketches was to occupy the summer. “What!” exclaimed James Russell Lowell when he heard of this, “going into that glorious country for the first time, and in the flush of youth! I am selfish enough to envy you.” While visiting in Paris Miss Anderson had a charming interview with Victor Hugo, who proposed a reception in her honor. But she pressed on to Verona, and, like many another before and since, found the old city irresistible.