The fair Matilda was coquettish. Her father’s evident preference for us was annoying. It was not the rule as laid down in novels. She seemed willing enough to love us, at times, but she did not like to have the current of her true love run smooth. Her father’s will was in the way, because it did not cross the path between her and us. Still, the aquatic exploit was _comme il faut_. Our reputation for wildness and deviltry at college was agreeable. Our dark locks, swarthy complexion, Byronic shirt collar and scholastic disgrace were all but irresistible. She could see we were desperately in love, and that was the mischief. Her sweet consent could not be gained. An acknowledgment of love, or a kiss, could not be ravished from her pretty lips. In this conjuncture we invoked the Moon. It was a most glorious August night. We sat in the back piazza, a perfect heaven of a place, embowered in a clump of locusts, and shaded by a wilderness of vines and flowering shrubs. As far as the eye could see, from between the whispering boughs, extended the magnificent valley of the Connecticut, stretching far away to the south; the course of the beautiful river in its midst plainly marked, here by a broad ribbon of glittering silver, and yonder by the long, slender line of mist, through which the distant landscape shone more heavenly and in softer light than the smiling country all around, where fields and villages, groves and steeples, straight highways and meandering brooks showed us plainly in the rich moonlight as if the noonday sun were shining. The air was soft, and not too warm, heavily laden with the perfume of flowers. From the village green, ever an anon, rose and swelled faint, sweet strains of music. The band was practicing for September training. We always thought the bugle had something to do with the catastrophe.