Before they had got back to Dimchurch, Reverend Finch had completed a domestic arrangement which permitted his daughter to occupy a perfectly independent position in the rectory, and which placed in her father's pockets--as Miss Finch's contribution to the housekeeping--five hundred a year.
(Do you know what I felt when I heard this?
I felt the deepest regret that Finch of the liberal principles had not made a third with my poor Pratolungo and me in Central America.

With him to advise us, we should have saved the sacred cause of Freedom without spending a single farthing on it!) The old side of the rectory, hitherto uninhabited, was put in order and furnished--of course at Lucilla's expense.

On her twenty-first birthday, the repairs were completed; the first installment of the housekeeping money was paid; and the daughter was established, as an independent lodger, in her own father's house! In order to thoroughly appreciate Finch's ingenuity, it is necessary to add here that Lucilla had shown, as she grew up, an increasing dislike of living at home.

In her blind state, the endless turmoil of the children distracted her.

She and her step-mother did not possess a single sympathy in common.