All this time Dick “got on” so, that it became a wonder to see him. He had finished Val’s carving long ago, and presented it to his gracious patron, declining with many blushes the “five bob” which he had been promised. Before he was eighteen, he had grown, in virtue of his absolute trustworthiness, to be the first and most important ministrant at the “rafts.” Everybody knew him, everybody liked him. So far as young squires and lordlings constitute that desirable thing, Dick lived in the very best society; his manners ought to have been good, for they were moulded on the manners of our flower of English youth. I am not very sure myself that he owed so much to this (for Eton boys, so far as I have seen, bear a quite extraordinary resemblance to other boys) as to his naturally sweet and genial temper, his honest and generous humbleness and unselfishness. Dick Brown was the very last person Dick thought of, whatever he might happen to be doing--and this is the rarest of all qualities in youth. Then he was so happy in having his way, and a “home,” and in overcoming his mother’s fancy for constant movement, that his work was delightful to him. It was hard work, and entailed a very long daily strain of his powers--too long, perhaps, for a growing boy--but yet it was pleasant, and united a kind of play with continuous exertion. All summer long he was on the river-side, the busiest of lads or men, in noiseless boating-shoes, and with a dress which continually improved till Dick became the nattiest as well as the handiest of his kind. He had a horror of everything that was ugly and dirty: when others lounged about in their hour’s rest, while their young clients were at school, Dick would be hot about something;--painting and rubbing the old boats, scraping the oars, bringing cleanness, and order, and that bold kind of decoration which belongs to boat-building, to the resuscitation of old gigs and “tubs” which had seemed good for nothing. He would even look after the flowers in the little strip of garden, and sow the seeds, and trim the border, while he waited, if there happened to be no old boats to cobble. He was happy when the sun shone upon nothing but orderliness and (as he felt it) beauty.