And Mamie gave a shuddering sigh at the recollection of the long, weary time she had passed upon the waters.
"Mamma said the time seemed longer to you than it really was," said Lily, "because you were alone and frightened; and the days are really the longest now, 'cause it's summer. In the winter the nights are the longest. It must be so, you know, 'cause our jography says so, and our 'Elements of 'Stronomy' too."
"Then they never were up all night, and don't know," said Mamie emphatically, quite resenting the idea that any one could be better informed in the matter than she who had had such an experience.
"Who were not up all night?" asked Mabel.
"She means the jogra-fers and the 'stron-amers," said Lily; "not the books of course, but the people who wrote them; but they must have been grown up; so I dare say they stayed up all night if they chose."
"I should think that I ought to know about it," said Mamie; "and when I'm grown up, I shall write a jography that says all the others don't know; 'cause once I stayed up and up and up, and there was a piece of the night left yet to go to sleep in."
Mamie was not to be convinced, and the others, with a feeling that she was to be indulged, and not contradicted under the present circumstances, left her to her belief.
"What did you think about, Mamie?" asked Belle. "Did you think you were going to be drowned?"
"Yes," said Mamie, her eyes filling with tears; "and, Belle, I thought a good deal about that watchword you gave me, and how, if I'd remembered it all the time, that wouldn't have happened to me; but it did make me feel a little better,—no, not better, there wasn't any better about it,—but not quite so very afraid to think God could see me, and take care of me, even out on the sea and in the dark. I did not see, either, how He was going to help me; and yet the way did come quite easy after all. And now—and now"—Mamie hesitated, and looked doubtfully from one to another of her companions.
"Well," said Lily encouragingly.