The return journey from California was made painfully memorable by a disastrous accident to a railway train which had preceded the party, and they were compelled to stop for the night at a little roadside town in Missouri. The hotels were full of wounded passengers, and scenes of distress were visible on all sides. When they were almost despairing of a night's lodging, a plain countryman approached them, and offered the hospitality of his pretty white cottage hard by, embosomed in its trees and flowers. The offer was thankfully accepted, and soon after their arrival the wife's sister, a "school mar'm," came in, and seemed to warm at once to her beautiful young visitor. She proposed a walk, and the two girls sallied forth into the fields. The stranger turned the subject to Shakespeare and the stage, with which Mary Anderson was fain to confess but a very slight acquaintance, fearing the announcement of her profession would shock the prejudices of these simple country folk, who might shrink from having "a play actress" under their roof. Some months after the party had returned home there came a letter from these kind people saying how, to their delight and astonishment, they had accidentally discovered who had been their guest. It seemed the sister was an enthusiastic Shakespearean student, and all agreed that in entertaining Mary Anderson they had "entertained an angel unawares." The California trip may be said to close the first period of Mary Anderson's dramatic career. With some draw-backs and some rebuffs she had made a great success, but she was known thus far only as a Western girl, who had yet to encounter the judgment of the more critical audiences of the South and East, as years later, with a reputation second to none all over the States as well as in Canada, she essayed, with a success which has been seldom equaled, perhaps never surpassed, the ordeal of facing, at the Lyceum, an audience, perhaps the most fastidious and critical in London. CHAPTER IV. THE CAREER OF AN AMERICAN STAR.