Dennis submitted his stout frame to a convulsive laugh, which for an instant gave him some resemblance to a dog shaking himself on emerging from the water, "Drownded in half a fathom," he exclaimed, hilariously. "I'll be dog-goned if that ain't the cutest, aunty! Why, I'm almost sorry we didn't overset the old boat, to show you. It would have livened you up fit to kill."
"Dennis!" exclaimed Deely, her eyes flashing indignantly, "you ought to be ashamed."
"Oh, never mind the boy," Aunty Losh soothingly interposed. "It's his natur' to be wild, ye know. He ain't never happy unless he's in some dare-devil scrape. But where's Sylvester?"
Deely, with eyes cast down, appeared needlessly embarrassed. "He went up to Beaufort to market," she explained.
Something in her tone caused Dennis to glance at her rather fiercely, as if he were jealous. "Yes, that suits him," he muttered, with a trace of contempt. "Market business is just about what Sylv is good for; that's what it is."
"It aren't right to speak so of your only brother, Dennis," said Aunty Losh, mildly.
"Oh, dog gone it!" (Dennis reverted to his favorite expletive.) "What does it matter whose brother he is? I speak my mind. Deely, don't look so down on me. What's the trouble?"
"Only you're so rough," said the girl, laying her hand on his arm. "You know I love you, don't you, Dennie? But it goes against me to hear you talk so."
He placed his own rough hand on her smooth one and patted it softly for an instant; then he moved it somewhat brusquely from its resting-place on his shoulder, and Deely drew away a step or two.
"I catch all the fish," he said, "and Sylv takes 'em for himself." There seemed to be an undertone of double meaning in his remark. But the next instant he changed from gloom to sunny cheer. "Come, aunty, you mustn't stand here on the mud. I reckon you've been away so long you'll be kind o' glad to see the inside of the old cabin again; hey?"