with his daughter by his
side, among the company, while the will was read, and hearing this? He
got up, like a true Englishman, and made them a speech. "Ladies and
gentlemen," he said, "I admit that I am a Liberal in politics, and that
my wife's family are Dissenters. As an example of the principles thus
engendered in my household, I beg to inform you that my daughter accepts
this legacy with my full permission, and that I forgive Mr. Batchford."
With that, he walked out, with his daughter on his arm. He had heard
enough, please to observe, to satisfy him that Lucilla (while she lived
unmarried) could do what she liked with her income. 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. 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