This 1st of March inaugurated Val’s last summer on the river--at least, on this part of the river, for he had still Oxford and its triumphs in prospect. That “summer half” was his last in Eton, and naturally he made the most of it. Val had, as people say, “done very well” at school. He was not a brilliant success, but still he had done very well, and his name in the school list gave his grandparents great pleasure. Lord Eskside kept a copy of that little _brochure_ on his library table, and would finger it half consciously many a time when some county magnate was interviewing the old lord. Val’s name appeared in it like this: * Ross (5) γ. Now this was not anything like the stars and ribbons of the name next above his, which was B * Robinson, (19) α; for I do not mean to pretend that he was very studious, or had much chance of being in the Select for the Newcastle Scholarship (indeed he missed this distinction, though he went in for it gallantly, without being, however, much disappointed by his failure). To be sure, I have it all my own way in recording what Val did at Eton, since nobody is likely nowadays, without hard labour in the way of looking up old lists, to be in a position to contradict me. But he had the privilege of writing his letters upon paper bearing the mystic monogram of Pop.--_i.e._, he was a member of _Eton Society_, which was a sure test of his popularity; and he was privileged in consequence to walk about with a cane, and to take part in debates on very abstruse subjects (I am not quite sure which privilege is thought the most important), and received full recognition as “a swell,”--a title which, I am happy to say, bears no vulgar interpretation at Eton, as meaning either rank or riches. And he was a very sublime sight to see on the 4th of June, the great Eton holiday, both in the morning, when he appeared in school in court dress--breeches and black silk stockings--and delivered one of those “Speeches” with which Eton upon that day delights such members of the fashionable world as can spare a summer morning out of the important business of the season; and in the evening, when he turned out in still more gorgeous array, stroke of the best boat on the river, and a greater personage than it is easy for a grown-up and sober-minded imagination to conceive.