\"What did you come for, then?\"
\"It was to tell you not to be uneasy about us, because we hadn’t got drownded.\"
\"Tom, Tom, I would be the thankfullest soul in this world if I could believe you ever had as good a thought as that, but you know you never did—and I know it, Tom.\"
\"Indeed and ’deed I did, auntie—I wish I may never stir if I didn’t.\"
\"Oh, Tom, don’t lie—don’t do it. It only makes things a hundred times worse.\"
\"It ain’t a lie, auntie; it’s the truth. I wanted to keep you from grieving—that was all that made me come.\" \"I’d give the whole world to believe that—it would cover up a power of sins, Tom. I’d ’most be glad you’d run off and acted so bad. But it ain’t reasonable; because, why didn’t you tell me, child?\"
\"Why, you see, when you got to talking about the funeral, I just got all full of the idea of our coming and hiding in the church, and I couldn’t somehow bear to spoil it. So I just put the bark back in my pocket and kept mum.\"
\"What bark?\"
\"The bark I had wrote on to tell you we’d gone pirating. I wish, now, you’d waked up when I kissed you—I do, honest.\"
The hard lines in his aunt’s face relaxed and a sudden tenderness dawned in her eyes.
\"Did you kiss me, Tom?\"