Mapleson asked me to stay on the other side and sing in England, Ireland, and France at practically my own terms, but I refused to do so. I had made my English success and now I wanted to go home in triumph. My mother agreed with me that it was time to be turning homeward. So I accepted an engagement to sing under the management of the Strakosches, Max and Maurice, on a long concert tour. I have only gratitude for the manner in which my own people welcomed my return. The critics found me much improved, and one and all gave me credit for hard and unremitting work. "Here is a young singer," said one, "who has steadily worked her way to the highest position in operatic art." That point of view always pleased me; for I contend now, as I have contended since I first began to sing, that, next to having a voice in the first place, the great essential is to work; and then _work_; and, after that, begin to WORK! New York as a city did not please me when I saw it again. I had forgotten, or never fully realised, how provincial it was. Even to-day I firmly believe that it is undoubtedly the dirtiest city in the world, that its traffic regulation is the worst, and its cab service the most expensive and inconvenient. All this struck me with particular force when I came home fresh from London and Paris. My contract with the Strakosches was for twenty-five weeks, four appearances a week, making a hundred performances in all. This tour was only broken by a short engagement under my old director Maretzek at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, an arrangement made for me by Max Strakosch when we reached that city in the spring; and, with the exception of _Robert le Diable_, _Trovatore_, and one or two other operas, I spent the next three years singing in concert and oratorio entirely. It was not enjoyable, but it was successful. We went all over the country, North, South, East, West, and everywhere found an enthusiastic public. Particularly was this so in the South as far as I personally was concerned. The poor South had not yet recovered from the effects of the Civil War and did not have much money to spend on amusements, but, when at Richmond the people learned that I was Southern born, more than one woman said to me: "Go? To hear you! Yes, indeed; we'll hang up all we have to go and hear you!" One of my popular fellow-artists on the first tour was James M. Wehli, the English pianist. He was known as the "left-handed pianist" and was in reality better suited to a vaudeville stage than to a concert platform. His particular accomplishment consisted in playing a great number of pieces brilliantly with his left hand only, a feat remarkable enough in itself but not precisely an essential for a great artist, and, even as a pianist, he was not inspired.