the place at fair wages. Our miller wants
a white boy to go around with the grist. Would you like the place?"

"I thank you, sir, no; my plans for the future are fixed; that is, as
nearly fixed as those of short-sighted mortals can be," smiled Ishmael.

"Ah, indeed!" exclaimed the judge, raising his eyebrows, "and may I, as
one interested in your welfare, inquire what those plans may be?"

"Certainly, sir, and I thank you very much for the interest you express,
as well as for all your kindness to me." Ishmael paused for a moment and
then added:

"On the first of September I shall open the Rushy Shore schoolhouse, for
the reception of day pupils."

"Whe-ew!" said the judge, with a low whistle, "and do you really mean to
be a schoolmaster?"

"For the present, sir, until a better one can be found to fill the
place; then, indeed, I shall feel bound in honor and conscience to
resign my post, for I do not believe teaching to be my true vocation."

"No! I should think not, indeed!" replied Judge Merlin, who of course
supposed the overseer's nephew, notwithstanding the grace and courtesy
of his speech and manner, to be fit for nothing but manual labor. "What
ever induces you to try school-keeping?" he inquired.

"I am driven to it by my own necessities, and drawn to it by the
necessities of others. In other words, I need employment, and the
neighborhood needs a teacher--and I think, sir, that one who
conscientiously does his best is better than none at all. Those are the
reasons, sir, why I have taken the school, with the intention of keeping
it until a person more competent than myself to discharge its duties
shall be found, when I shall give it up; for, as I said before, teaching
is not my ultimate vocation."

"What is your 'ultimate vocation,' young man? for I should like to help
you to it," said the judge, still thinking only of manual labor in all
its varieties; "what is it?"

"Jurisprudence," answered Ishmael.

"Juris--what?" demanded the judge, as if he had not heard aright.

"Jurisprudence--the science of human justice; the knowledge of the laws,
customs, and rights of man in communities; the study above all others
most necessary to the due administration of justice in human affairs,
and even in divine, and second only to that of theology," replied
Ishmael, with grave enthusiasm.

"But--you don't mean to say that you intend to become a lawyer?"
exclaimed the judge, in a state of astonishment that bordered