Is there any indication that the financial circumstances of the Primrose family have improved during this time period? I am wondering how they afforded to have such a large portrait commissioned, but perhaps it wasn't very expensive. I looked up the word limner, and it could have been a watercolor painting or sketch, which might not have cost a great deal.

Also, this passage struck me when the Vicar goes in search of his daughter (ch. 18):

"But the agitations of my mind, and the fatigues I had undergone, threw me into a fever. . .I retired to a little ale-house by the road-side, and in this place, the usual retreat of indigence and frugality, I laid me down patiently to wait the issue of my disorder. I languished here for nearly three weeks; but at last my constitution prevailed, though I was unprovided with money to defray the expenses of my entertainment. It is possible the anxiety from this last circumstance alone might have brought on a relapse, had I not been supplied by a traveller, who stopped to take a cursory refreshment."