by devoting myself to the legal
profession, and--"

At this point Ned hesitated for a moment, and his uncle broke in with--

"Tell me, now, if every one thought about business as you do, how would
the world get on, think you?"

"Badly, I fear," replied the youth, with a smile; "but everybody doesn't
think of it as I do; and, tell me, uncle, if everybody thought of
business as you would wish me to do, what would come of the soldiers and
sailors who defend our empire, and extend our foreign trade, and achieve
the grand geographical discoveries that have of late added so much
lustre to the British name?"

Ned flushed and became quite eloquent at this point. "Now, look at
California," he continued; "there's a magnificent region, full of gold;
not a mere myth, or an exaggeration, but a veritable fact, attested by
the arrival of letters and gold-dust every month. Surely that land was
made to be peopled; and the poor savages who dwell there need to be
converted to Christianity, and delivered from their degraded condition;
and the country must be worked, and its resources be developed; and
who's to do it, if enterprising clergymen, and schoolmasters, and miners
do not go to live there, and push their fortunes?"

"And which of the three callings do you propose adopting?" inquired Mr
Shirley, with a peculiar smile.

"Well uncle, I--a--the fact is, I have not thought much about that as
yet. Of course, I never thought of the first. I do not forget your own
remark, that the calling of a minister of the gospel of Christ is not,
like other professions, to be adopted merely as a means of livelihood.
Then, as to the second, I might perhaps manage that; but I don't think
it would suit me."

"Do you think, then, that you would make a good digger?"

"Well, perhaps I would," replied Ned, modestly.

Mr Shirley gravely regarded the powerful frame that reclined in the
easy-chair before him, and was compelled to admit that the supposition
was by no means outrageous.

"Besides," continued the youth, "I might turn my hand to many things in
a new country. You know I have studied surveying, and I can sketch a
little, and know something of architecture. I suppose that Latin and
Greek would not be of much use, but the little I have picked up of
medicine and surgery among the medical students would be useful. Then I
could take notes, and sketch the scenery, and bring back a mass of
material that might interest the public, and do goo