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