We can see how her story-making sense was developing. In these letters she was taking a hint from a certain plan which the Beecher family had been making use of since the members had been so widely scattered. They sent a circular letter around from one member of the family to another, each adding a letter to the collection that came to him, until all had read it. In this circular letter the different characteristics of the family were brought into a pleasant contrast, just as Harriet planned to bring them out in the imaginary family that she created. The first one of this series she surrounded with particulars intended to carry out the deception. Her one idea at this time seems to have been to conceal her budding tendency toward authorship, and yet she could not resist the fertility of invention and the pleasure it gave her. When she had finished the letter she smoked it to turn it yellow and tore the edges to give it the look of age; she wrote and re-wrote the direction, imitated a postmark by means of smears of ink, sealed the letter with wax and then broke the seal open again, all in order to give the letter the appearance of a really old letter. Then she put it into another envelope on which she placed the address in different handwriting and directed it to “Mrs. Samuel E. Foote.” At the same time she sent another letter to her cousin directing her to be on the lookout for the coming of a letter and to aid her in the deception. The family, including even that wary and clever Uncle Samuel, were taken in by the joke. The erased names and dates were deciphered and the whole epistle was subjected to criticism, but it was believed in as a real letter. So much for Harriet’s practical joke.