Poor Miss Finch

"Poor Miss Finch" by Wilkie Collins is a story that occurs in the latter part of the 1800s, about affection, connections between folks, and how society sees people, especially a sightless girl named Lucilla Finch. The story looks at how she gets along with different people, like her new friend, Madame Pratolungo, and a puzzling guy called Nugent Dubourg, who has a strange past that makes people think about what's right and wrong. At the very start, readers meet Madame Pratolungo, a woman from another country who talks about her own difficult life and how she ended up in a quiet English town. She starts working as a caregiver for Lucilla Finch, a pretty blind girl with a family that can be a bit much. Once Madame Pratolungo gets used to her new life, she gets interested in Lucilla and some of the strange things that happen to her, especially the mysterious Nugent Dubourg. The first part of the story shows how Lucilla is hopeful and positive about the world, and how things will get complicated as she meets new people, setting the scene for a tale that combines deep feelings with thoughts on what society is like.