My first appearance after my European experience was in a concert at the Academy of Music in New York. It was a real welcome home. People cheered and waved and threw flowers and clapped until I was literally in tears. I felt that it did not matter in the least whether New York was a real city or not; America was a real country! When the concert was over, the men from the Lotus Club took the horses out of my carriage and dragged it, with me in it, to my hotel. And oh, my flowers! My American title of "The Flower _Prima Donna_" was soon reestablished beyond all peradventure. Flowers in those days were much rarer than they are now; and I received, literally, loads and loads of camellias, and roses enough to set up many florist shops. Without exaggeration, I sent those I received by _cartloads_ to the hospitals. And one "floral offering" that I received in Boston was actually too large for any waggon. A subscription had been raised and a pagoda of flowers sent. I had to hire a dray to carry it to my hotel; and then it could not be got up the stairs but had to spend the night downstairs. In the morning I had the monstrous thing photographed and sent it off to a hospital. Even this was an undertaking as I could not, for some reason, get the dray of the night before; and had to hire several able-bodied men to carry it. I hope it was a comfort to somebody before it faded! It is a pity that this tribute on the part of Boston did not assume a more permanent form, for I should have much appreciated a more lasting token as a remembrance of the occasion. It must not be thought that I was unappreciative because I say this. I love anything and everything that blooms, and I love the spirit that offers me flowers. But I must say that the pagoda was something of a white elephant. While thinking of Boston and my first season at home, I must not omit mention of Mrs. Martin. Indeed, it will have to be rather more than a mere mention, for it is quite a little story, beginning indirectly with Wright Sandford. Wright Sandford was the only man in New York with a big independent fortune, except "Willie" Douglass who spent most of his time cruising in foreign waters. Wright Sandford was more of a friend of mine than "Willie" Douglass, and I used to haul him over the coals occasionally for his lazy existence. He had eighty thousand a year and absolutely nothing to do but to amuse himself. "What do you expect me to do?" he would demand plaintively. "I've no one to play with!" Whenever I was starting on a tour he would send me wonderful hampers put up by Delmonico, with the most delicious things to eat imaginable in them, so that my mother and I never suffered, at least for the first day or two, from the inconveniences of the bad food usually experienced by travellers. A very nice fellow was Wright Sandford in many ways, and to this day I am appreciative of the Delmonico luncheons if of nothing else.