Her relations with her father were in much the same condition.
She could compassionate his poverty, and she could treat him with the forbearance and respect due to him from his child.

As to really venerating and loving him--the less said about that the better.

Her happiest days had been the days she spent with her uncle and aunt; her visits to the Batchfords had grown to be longer and longer visits with every succeeding year.

If the father, in appealing to the daughter's sympathies, had not dexterously contrived to unite the preservation of her independence with the continuance of her residence under his roof, she would, on coming of age, either have lived altogether with her aunt, or have set up an establishment of her own.

As it was, the rector had secured his five hundred a year, on terms acceptable to both sides--and, more than that, he had got her safe under his own eye.