sincere enough.

"I see you would like it. Don't stand; we can talk while we go. Well,
my boy, there is a great deal of hard work, patient plodding,
uninteresting study to be gone through, and as many failures and
tumbles as days in the year, before you reach even the first step of
the ladder. Do you think you could go through it?"

"I would go through anything, Mr. Keane, and toil for twenty years,
if need be, only to be allowed to work at it. Do you know, it is life
to me even to think of it."

Robert Keane glanced curiously at the lad. His face was kindling with
emotion, and his eyes shone like stars.

"All right, my boy; you're the right stuff, I see. Leave it with me;
I'll fix it right enough. And you'll go to Philadelphia as sure as my
name's Keane. No need to thank me. Let your future success be my
reward, if I need any. Let us try a race back; you're a splendid
skater."

They turned, and sped along the ice at lightning speed, and Tom came
in a dozen yards in front at the farther side.

"Ahead of me," laughed Mr. Keane. "Is that an omen of the future,
Tom?"

Miss Goldthwaite noted the boy's flushed, happy face and bright eyes,
and concluded Mr. Robert Keane must have wrought the change. She
turned to remark upon it to Alice, when a hand touched her arm, and