The virtuous incentives of family life, though only provided on a small scale, were not lacking for the development of Mr. Trimblerigg’s character. He had three uncles, two aunts, a great-uncle and a grandfather--all fairly contiguous, the family being of the indigenous not of the migratory kind--besides a father, a mother and a sister, with whom contact was continuous and unescapable. Even in their naming the children had been linked for lovely and pleasant relationship in after-life; for when the Trimblerigg first-born, whom its parents confidently expected to be a son, turned into a daughter--adapting the forechosen name to suit her sex, they called her Davidina; and when, nearly two years later, our own Mr. Trimblerigg struggled out into the world, nearly killing his mother in the process, the destined name Jonathan was there waiting for him. And so, very early in his career, Mr. Trimblerigg’s sister Davidina became the whetstone of his virtues--its operation summed up in the word ‘emulation.’ Nature would perhaps have brought it about in any case, even if the parental plan had not inculcated and forced it home; but when it became clear to Mr. and Mrs. Trimblerigg senior that no more children were to be theirs, they conceived the idea of blending the business with the moral instincts, and in the training of their two offspring making virtue competitive. No wonder then, that, as their moral sense dawned, the germ of mutual suspicion and hatred grew lodged in their souls. This, however, did not prevent them, when self-interest prompted, from being also allies, as the following may show. The parental idea of making virtue competitive had taken one of its earlier forms--for economic reasons, I fancy--in the matter of pocket-money; and the weekly penny was tendered not as a right nor even as a reward for good average behaviour, but as a prize to be wrestled for, gain by the one involving loss by the other--a device that had the incidental advantage of halving the tax on the pocket which provided it. The fact that Davidina won it far more frequently and easily than he did, set Mr. Trimblerigg his first problem in goodness run as a means to profit. He accordingly invited his sister to an arrangement whereby, irrespective of conduct, they should go shares; and when this accommodating olive-branch was scornfully rejected, he became so offensively good for three weeks on end that Davidina, left penniless, capitulated on terms, and, in order to get a remnant of her money’s worth, bargained that they should be good--or at least each better than the other--in alternate weeks, this being a more tolerable arrangement to her careful soul than that brother Jonathan, with no effort at all, ever secondary in virtue, should share equally the pennies which she had earned.