So silently, invisible, with imperceptible pace, mind against mind, Davidina tightened her grip. One struggle to escape from the blast of her continued silence he made; but it was no good. New callers had come with their congratulations, and the story was to be repeated once more. Summoned to a fresh drench of ignominy under his sister’s calm gaze, Mr. Trimblerigg had a flash of inspiration. He laughed jovially. ‘Oh, I just pushed her into the water,’ he said; ‘so of course I had to go after her. I tried to save her; but Davidina preferred to save herself. And that’s all there was to it!’ The visitors laughed, thinking what a very charming and modest young man he was. And Davidina laughed too. CHAPTER SEVEN _He Tries to be Honest_ Davidina got over her cold without difficulty. But Mr. Trimblerigg, who from repeated immersion, had been in the water much longer and with opportunities for severe chills to take him between whiles, fell seriously ill. It was with a sort of satisfaction that he took to his bed; for this at any rate was a genuine result of his life-saving efforts, and seemed in a way to affect their character, giving them the testimonial he craved. Davidina accepted the duty which fate had laid on her, and nursed him with devoted detachment. ‘It’s wonderful how those two do love each other!’ remarked Mrs. Trimblerigg, after viewing a sick-bed scene where Jonathan was as one hanging between life and death in Davidina’s arms: ‘And yet to look at them sometimes you wouldn’t think it.’ That was on the first day of desperate symptoms, preliminary to the arrival of the doctor, when Davidina, for lack of higher guidance was nursing him with prescriptions of her own choosing. He had horrible pains; she pursued them with the old-fashioned remedies which, in remote country districts, still effect cures, and for which the undeserving doctor comes presently to receive the fee. Fore and aft, wherever a pain came catching his breath, she skinned him with untempered applications of hot raw mustard; and after five hours of it he still survived. When the doctor came he could not but admire her handiwork. ‘Well, you have punished him!’ he said. He examined the patient and gave the illness its name--double pneumonia. Its importance was a satisfaction to Mr. Trimblerigg and Davidina alike; they took it as a worthy occupation;--he to be ill of it, she to have the nursing of it. For the next fortnight brother and sister enjoyed each other thoroughly, more than they had ever done in their lives before. They even became fond of each other. But character remained; the fondness was critical.