“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?”

“Why, yes, I did.”

“Are you sure you did, Tom?”

“Why, yes, I did, auntie⁠—certain sure.”