Mr. Keating looked at the cheerful, hopeful face, a sure index of the brave hopeful spirit. He had taken unusual interest in the two Halliburtons, so clever and persevering. It had been impossible for him not to do so; for, if Mr. Keating had a weakness, it was for a good classical scholar.
"I'll see about it, Gar," said he. "But you are rather young to read with students. And I do not suppose any school would be willing to engage you on account of the interruption that keeping your terms would cause. If nothing better turns up, you can remain in the college school-room here, and undertake one of the junior desks. I should give you nothing for it," added the master, "except your meals. Those you would be welcome to take at my house with my private pupils, sleeping at your own home. And I think that, for you, it would be a better arrangement than any other, for it would leave you plenty of time for your own studies, and I could still superintend them."
Gar thought the arrangement would be first-rate. It would be the very thing. "Not that I ever thought of it," he ingenuously said. "I did not know the college school admitted assistants."
"Neither does it," replied the master. "You would be ostensibly my private pupil. And if I choose to set a private pupil to keep the desks to their work, that is my affair."
Gar could only reiterate his thanks.
"I am pleased to give you this little encouragement," remarked Mr. Keating. "When I see boys hopefully plodding on in the teeth of difficulties, of brave heart, of sterling conduct, they deserve all the encouragement that can be given to them. If you and your brothers only go on as you have hitherto gone on, you will stand in after-years as bright examples of what industry and perseverance can achieve."
So that, altogether, Gar was in spirits, and did not by any means put on superfluous mourning for a gentleman who had died in the backwoods of Canada, although he was his mother's brother.