In our early youth, while a sophomore at college, we attended the obsequies of Euclid, for which devout act, taken in connection with divers previous doings, not pleasant to the Faculty, we received sentence of suspension, and forthwith retired, like Sir William Temple, into the country. Our retreat was the residence of an extremely worthy and learned, but somewhat prosy clergyman; who, having been ousted from his pastoral charge of the discontented souls in his parish, occupied his time and gained a living by the culture of corn, potatoes, tame oats and wild young gentlemen. Near by lived a retired ship-chandler, happy in the possession of a solid fortune, an ethereal daughter, a white villa and a black Newfoundland dog. How well we remember the lovely Matilda. She was very fair, with bright brown hair that hung, every afternoon, in ringlets over her neck and shoulders; her blue eyes were of the color of the sky; her form was sylph-like; her teeth were pearls; her lips were rubies; and—so forth. Moreover, her age tallied with ours almost exactly—that is to say, she was eighteen, and we a quarter past; and her fortune, in expectation, was three times as many thousands. We will not stop now to relate how romantically we became acquainted with this very lovely young person—how extremely wet and grateful she was, and how exceedingly muddy and gratified we were—how profuse were her father’s thanks and perspiration, as he met us at the garden-gate, after a severe run down the gravel-walk; how urgent were his invitations to make ourself at home in future at his house—how we aided the lovely and very damp Matilda to gain the door—how belligerent were the manifestations of the Newfoundland dog, as we met him on our return to the street; how charming the gentle Matilda appeared the next morning; how slowly, after that, we progressed in Greek, and how rapidly in romantic experiences; how gracious was the old gentleman; how excessively sly was his wit—for that was before our father died insolvent, to the great astonishment and chagrin of all his creditors, and just as everybody else said they always knew he would. All this has nothing to do with the moon’s influence on the dog. The latter never took kindly to us. Our appearance at our first interview with him seemed to impress him unfavorably. He always behaved as if he thought we had usurped his prerogative, in rescuing his young mistress from a muddy-watery grave. He eyed us askance; he appeared to believe our gentlemanly clothing a disguise over the damp and discolored raiment which had invested our limbs at the time we first encountered him, and manifested an evident and almost irrepressible longing to strip us of our assumed garb. In consequence of which he was doomed to close confinement, every night, in a kennel beneath the back piazza.