She could only publish with Meesons's, and at the fixed pay of seven per cent on the advertised price of her work.

Now, something over three years had elapsed since the death of Mrs.Smithers, and it will therefore be obvious that there was not much remaining of the six hundred pounds which she had left behind her.

The two girls had, indeed, lived economically enough in a couple of small rooms in a back street; but their expenses had been enormously increased by the serious illness, from a pulmonary complaint, of the little girl Jeannie, now a child between twelve and thirteen years of age.

On that morning, Augusta had seen the doctor and been crushed into the dust by the expression of his conviction, that, unless her little sister was moved to a warmer climate, for a period of at least a year, she would not live through the winter, and _might_ die at any moment.
Take Jeannie to a warmer climate! He might as well have told Augusta to take her to the moon.

Alas, she had not the money and did not know where to turn to get it! Oh! reader, pray to Heaven that it may never be your lot to see your best beloved die for the want of a few hundred pounds wherewith to save her life! It was in this terrible emergency that she had--driven thereto by her agony of mind--tried to get something beyond her strict and legal due out of Meeson's--Meeson's that had made hundreds and hundreds out of her book and paid her fifty pounds.