At twelve, we find her in the school of Mr. John P. Brace, a well-known teacher, where she developed great fondness for composition.  At the exhibition at the close of the year, it was the custom for all the parents to come and listen to the wonderful productions of their children.  From the list of subjects given, Harriet had chosen, “Can the Immortality of the Soul be proved by the Light of Nature?”

“When mine was read,” she says, “I noticed that father brightened and looked interested.  ‘Who wrote that composition?’ he asked of Mr. Brace. ‘Your daughter, sir!’ was the answer.  There was no mistaking father’s face when he was pleased, and to have interested him was past all juvenile triumphs.”

A new life was now to open to Harriet.  Her only sister Catharine, a brilliant and noble girl, was engaged to Professor Fisher of Yale College.  They were to be married on his return from a European tour, but alas! the Albion, on which he sailed, went to pieces on the rocks, and all on board, save one, perished.  Her betrothed was never heard from.  For months all hope seemed to go out of Catharine’s life, and then, with a strong will, she took up a course of mathematical study, his favorite study, and Latin under her brother Edward.  She was now twenty-three.  Life was not to be along the pleasant paths she had hoped, but she must make it tell for the future.

With remarkable energy, she went to Hartford, Conn., where her brother was teaching, and thoroughly impressed with the belief that God had a work for her to do for girls, she raised several thousand dollars and built the Hartford Female Seminary.  Her brothers had college doors opened to them; why, she reasoned, should not women have equal opportunities?  Society wondered of what possible use Latin and moral philosophy could be to girls, but they admired Miss Beecher, and let her do as she pleased.  Students poured in, and the seminary soon overflowed.  My own school life in that beloved institution, years afterward, I shall never forget.

And now the little twelve-year-old Harriet came down from Litchfield to attend Catharine’s school, and soon become a pupil-teacher, that the burden of support might not fall too heavily upon the father.  Other children had come into the Beecher home, and with a salary of eight hundred dollars, poverty could not be other than a constant attendant.  Once when the family were greatly straitened for money, while Henry and Charles were in college, the new mother went to bed weeping, but the father said, “Well, the Lord always has taken care of me, and I am sure He always will,” and was soon fast asleep.  The next morning, Sunday, a letter was handed in at the door, containing a $100 bill, and no name.  It was a thank-offering for the conversion of a child.

Mr. Beecher, with all his poverty, could not help being generous.  His wife, by close economy, had saved twenty-five dollars to buy a new overcoat for him.  Handing him the roll of bills, he started out to purchase the garment, but stopped on the way to attend a missionary meeting.  His heart warmed as he stayed, and when the contribution-box was passed, he put in the roll of bills for the Sandwich Islanders, and went home with his threadbare coat!