Things were no better after she was in the boat. It was "no fun on that stupid river;" the boat was "too crowded," although Mr. Bradford had left it now; one "pushed" her, and another "shoved" her; although if you had asked the other children, they would probably have said that it was she herself who did the pushing and shoving; and, in short, she made herself so disagreeable that Maggie afterwards privately confided to Bessie that she found Mamie "very much re-dis-improved, and like the Mamie of old days."
Her brothers were very much vexed with her, and even threatened to set her upon the river-bank, and leave her there by herself till they were ready to land; a threat which was, at last, carried out after she had become quite unbearable, and destroyed the pleasure of the whole party.
However, it was not much more agreeable to have her shrieking upon the river-bank than it was to have her grumbling in the boat; and she was taken in again on promise of better behavior.
This promise she fulfilled by sitting sullenly in her own corner of the boat without opening her lips; but the sounds which had come from them before were not so sweet as to make her companions regret her silence.
And for such a trifle Mamie was making herself and all about her uncomfortable; for the sake of this one forbidden pleasure set against so many comforts and enjoyments, she had forgotten, or wilfully put out of sight, all her good resolutions, and the remembrance of that Eye which watched every thought and feeling of her heart.
And yet, perhaps it was the consciousness of this, the guilty, uneasy conscience, which helped to make her so fretful and irritable, so hard to please, and captious to all about her. She was more ready, as we have seen, to test the conduct of others by her "watchword" than she was her own, now that the first novelty of it had worn off; but she could not quite put away the reproachful echo in her own heart.
