In many aspects, it is very similar to the Canadian "Anne of Green Gables" - a precocious and poor girl is taken in and raised by a pair of siblings, one strict and the other sweet. However, if LM Montgomery borrowed ideas from "Rebecca" for the book she would publish five years later, she managed to do something equivalent to taking the Wright Brothers' aeroplane plans and modifying them to produce a Boeing 747. The prose in this work is pedantic. The wealthy patron who comes to her rescue is a tired (and slightly Nabokovian) trope. Moreover, the author seems to have the intention of overwhelming the reader with a thesaurus, spraying her with commas, and then driving away in a getaway horse and buggy.
I got about 3/4 through reading this to my daughter. But her boredom forced me to give it up and finish it myself. It was a bit disappointing as I had hoped she would enjoy it as much as I thought I would. However, the writing style and the overly elaborate language seemed to be a turn-off for her. Maybe it's a book that is better suited for a more mature audience or those who have a particular taste for this kind of writing.