This drama which has many elements of nobility in it and which shows a great deal of skill, filled Harriet’s waking thoughts and her dreams at night, and for a long time she was joyously filling blank book after blank book with the flowing lines. But the play was never finished. Her sister Catherine pounced down upon her one day and told her that she should not waste any more time writing poetry, but that she should discipline her mind by the study of Butler’s “Analogy.” So the obedient Harriet laid aside her loved play and began to write out abstracts of the “Analogy.” Thus her dramatic aspirations were for the time arrested. Catherine snuffed out the little light of her sister’s budding poetic genius; or, rather, perhaps we should say that she turned those powers in another direction; she saved and stored that intellectual energy for a purpose of which neither of them had at that time the remotest dream. CHAPTER VII STUDIES AND TEACHERS After the death of Mrs. Beecher in 1816 the care of the younger ones fell to a large extent upon the elder daughter, Harriet’s capable and energetic sister Catherine, who was some twelve years older than she. So the traditions of the mother Roxana were carried on in the household until a second mother, another highly cultivated lady, came to take the headship of the home. It is natural that this strong and brilliant Catherine should have a great influence upon the sensitive younger sister, and that the various steps in Catherine’s career and in her soul-history should be followed by Harriet with interest and sympathy almost as great as if she had been a responsible part in the story. And if disturbing experiences came to Catherine, a reflected tumult would naturally pass through the life of Harriet. This is exactly what did happen. Harriet’s days were shaded by the sorrows of Catherine through all the early years of her young womanhood.