In natural reaction from the strenuousness of her daily tasks Harriet could not resist the impulse to loosen the reins of her whimsical fancy at the meetings and to be the very soul of merriment in this intimate circle. The first thing she wrote as a Semi-colon was a letter purporting to have come from Bishop Butler, composed, as Harriet said to Georgiana May, in his “outrageous style of parenthesis and foggification.” Her next essay was a satirical piece on the modern uses of languages. We can hardly imagine how this subject could be made interesting, yet we feel that we could trust Harriet Beecher to turn any prosy matter into mirth. This essay was so well received by the audience that the editor of the _Western Magazine_ requested permission to publish it in his magazine. Elated by this success, she undertook a larger task, planning a series of letters that were to take up a number of different subjects. She liked to write in a slightly satirical manner. There had been some random talk in the social hours of the Club meetings on the antiquated jokes about old maids and bachelors. Harriet thought she would touch upon this and call for some fresh pleasantries to take the place of those worn-out ones. She wrote a list of legislative enactments solemnly forbidding the merest mention of the word “old maid” or “bachelor” in the future and forever more. This was indeed a playing with fire, but the letters made no hard feelings, as there was a courteous spirit beneath the satire. She followed this with an attempt at more serious writing, though here again her passion for fun made her resort to the device of a practical joke. Putting what she had to say this time into the form of letters, she carried out her idea with a wealth of incident and of particulars that made the letters give the feeling of a group of real people. The letters appeared to be written from a house in the country, where the hosts and their guests were pious, literary, and agreeable. By having the letters come apparently from different people who showed their various characteristics, the author had the opportunity to bring in different points of view and a lively interchange of ideas.