of her part.
Mary Anderson's Meg Merrilies was an immense success; Cushman herself
never received greater applause, and the scene was quite an ovation.
Hearing, on the fall of the curtain, that General Beauregard, one of the
heroes of the civil war, intended to make a presentation, she threw off
her disguise, and smoothing her hair rushed back to the stage, to receive
the Badge of the Washington Artillery, a belt enameled in blue, with
crossed cannons in gold with diamond vents, and suspended from the belt a
tiger's head in gold, with diamond eyes and ruby tongue. The corps had
been known through the war as the "Tiger Heads," and were famed for their
deeds of daring and bravery. The belt bore the inscription, "To Mary
Anderson, from her friends of the Battalion." She returned thanks in a
little speech, which was received with much enthusiasm, and retired almost
overcome with pleasure and pride. The youthful actress, who had then not
completed her seventeenth year, took by storm the hearts of the impulsive
and chivalrous Southerners. On the morning of her departure, she found to
her astonishment that the railway company had placed a fine "Pullman" and
special engine at her disposal all the way to Louisville. Generals
Beauregard and Hood, with many distinguished Southerners, were on the
platform to bid her farewell, and she returned home with purse and
reputation, both marvelously grown.

After a brief period spent in diligent study, Mary Anderson fulfilled a
second engagement in New Orleans, which proved a great financial success.
The criticisms of this period all admit her histrionic power, though some
describe her efforts as at times raw and crude, faults hardly to be
wondered at in a young girl mainly self-taught, and with barely a year's
experience of the business of the stage.

About this time Mary Anderson met with the first serious rebuff in her
hitherto so successful career. It happened, too, in California, the State
of her birth, where she was to have a somewhat rude experience of the old
adage, that "a prophet has no honor in his own country." John McCullough
was then managing with great success the principal theater in San
Francisco, and offered her a two weeks' engagement. But California would
have none of her. The public were cold and unsympathetic, the press
actually hostile. The critics declared not only that she could not act,
but that she was devoid of all capability of improvement. One, more
gallant t