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With the enthusiasm of a schoolboy, Will Brown adored Doris Foster. There was no maudlin, sentimental love nonsense about his adoration. It was the pure affection and liking a healthy youth feels for a healthy girl.

‘Excuse the expression, Edgar,’ he said one day, ‘but your sister is a brick.’

The schoolboy ‘brick’ is synonymous for everything that is good. When one lad calls another a ‘brick’ there’s a ring about the word that is unmistakable. So, when Will Brown called his sister a brick, Edgar Foster heartily endorsed the sentiment.

‘I’d like to know,’ said Will, ‘if there is anything she cannot do?’

‘Several things,’ said Edgar.

They were sitting in a boat close to the garden hedge, and passing their time pleasantly enough.

‘Enumerate some of them,’ said Will Brown incredulously.

‘She cannot smoke,’ said Edgar solemnly; ‘nor can she make a speech. She would be a ghastly failure as a woman politician, or a leader of fashion. I am afraid she could not write a book, and drag all her female friends through a moral pillory in it. Oh, there are heaps of things Doris cannot do!’