CHAPTER IV.
AUGUSTA'S DECISION.
On the second day following the death of poor little Jeannie Smithers, Mr.Eustace Meeson was strolling about Birmingham with his hands in his pockets, and an air of indecision on his decidedly agreeable and gentlemanlike countenance.

Eustace Meeson was not particularly cast down by the extraordinary reverse of fortune which he had recently experienced.

He was a young gentleman of a cheerful nature; and, besides, it did not so very much matter to him.

He was in a blessed condition of celibacy, and had no wife and children dependant upon him, and he knew that, somehow or other, it would go hard if, with the help of the one hundred a year that he had of his own, he did not manage, with his education, to get a living by hook or by crook.

So it was not the loss of the society of his respected uncle, or the prospective enjoyment of two millions of money, which was troubling him.