"Didn't look for you to come back—didn't expect it."
"Uncle Jethro!" she faltered. Love for her had made him go, and she would not say that, either.
"D-don't hate me, Cynthy—don't hate me?"
She shook her head.
"Love me—a little?"
She reached up her hands and brushed back his hair, tenderly, from his forehead. Such—a loving gesture was her answer.
"You are going to stay here always, now," she said, in a low voice, "you are never going away again."
"G-goin' to stay always," he answered. Perhaps he was thinking of the hillside clearing in the forest—who knows! "You'll come-sometime, Cynthy—sometime?"
"I'll come every Saturday and Sunday, Uncle Jethro," she said, smiling up at him. "Saturday is only two days away, now. I can hardly wait."
"Y-you'll come sometime?"