Poor Miss Finch: A novel

By Wilkie Collins

Contents

I-Madame Pratolungo presents herself

II-Madam Pratolungo makes a voyage on land

III-Poor Miss Finch

IV-Twilight view of the man

V-Candlelight view of the man

VI-A cage of finches

VII-Daylight view of the man

VIII-The perjury of the clock

IX-The hero of the trial

X-First appearance of Jicks

XI-Blind love

XII-Mr. Finch smells money

XIII-Second appearance of Jicks

XIV-Discoveries at Browndown

XV-Events at the bedside

XVI-First result of the robbery

XVII-The doctor's opinion

XVIII-Family troubles

XIX-Second result of the robbery

XX-Good Papa again!

XXI-Madame Pratolungo returns to Dimchurch

XXII-The twin-brother's letter

XXIII-He sets us all right

XXIV-He sees Lucilla

Excerpt from Chapter I

You are here invited to read the story of an event which occurred in an out-of-the-way corner of England, some years since.

The persons principally concerned in the event are:--a blind girl; two (twin) brothers; a skilled surgeon; and a curious foreign woman. I am the curious foreign woman. And I take it on myself--for-reasons which will presently appear--to tell the story.

So far we understand each other. Good. I may make myself known to you as briefly as I can.

I am Madame Pratolungo--widow of that celebrated South American patriot, Doctor Pratolungo. I am French by birth. Before I married the Doctor, I went through many vicissitudes in my own country. They ended in leaving me (at an age which is of no consequence to anybody) with some experience of the world; with a cultivated musical talent on the pianoforte; and with a comfortable little fortune unexpectedly bequeathed to me by a relative of my dead dead mother (which fortune I shared with good Papa and with my younger sisters). To these qualifications I added another, the most precious of all, when I married the Doctor; namely--a strong infusion of ultra-liberal principles. Vive la Republique!

Some people do one thing, and some do another, in the way of celebrating the event of their marriage. Having become man and wife, Doctor Pratolungo and I took ship to Central America--and devoted our honeymoon, in those disturbed districts, to the sacred duty of destroying tyrants.

Ah! the vital air of my noble husband was the air of revolutions. From his youth upwards he had followed the glorious profession of Patriot. Wherever the people of the Southern New World rose and declared their independence--and, in my time, that fervent population did nothing else--there was the Doctor self-devoted on the altar of his adopted country. He had been fifteen times exiled, and...

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