[Immense cheers.] Until I do, good-bye. I thank you again and again.’ At the conclusion of the speech the cheering and applause continued without interruption until Miss Anderson--down whose cheeks tears were pouring--had again come eight times before the curtain. The audience, which by this time was on its feet in every part of the house, and wildly waving handkerchiefs and hats, seemed struck by one thought, and the first strain of _Auld Lang Syne_ seemed to burst simultaneously from stalls and gallery. People who had never met before seized and wrung each other’s hands. Ladies wept and flourished their handkerchiefs hysterically. It is impossible to describe the scene. When I tell you that it lasted for fully half an hour, you will get an idea of what the Englishman, whom you Yankees call phlegmatic, can do in the way of enthusiasm when you touch his heart. It was an ovation which might have affected a monarch.” The American tour that followed, in the season of 1885–6, took Miss Anderson and her company (the custom by now was that of the traveling organization) not only to New York, Boston, and the other cities in the East and South, but to the Pacific coast. New York did not take to _As You Like It_, but _Romeo and Juliet_ was a brilliant success. A public reception in Sacramento proved the affection for Mary Anderson of the city of her birth, but, strange to say, in the single night she played there, the people of Sacramento provided her with only a meagre audience. In San Francisco the warmth of her reception was very different from the crushing disappointment she experienced there a dozen years before. Now came an entire year of rest. Offers to play in Spain, Germany, France and Australia were refused. The glamour of stage life was a thing of the past with Mary Anderson. By no means blind to the artistic possibilities of the drama, and with still a high faith in its moral function, a stage life for herself was becoming more and more repugnant. She felt the need of calm, of normal life away from the glare of the footlights. The winter of 1886–7 she spent in Paris, in general study and particularly with her French and music. It is characteristic of her that with a chance for recreation and social life, and with all her triumphs behind her, she still sought to mend an education she knew to be faulty.