"I don't want to learn," she said. "I am tired of being in the water; I shall go in."
"Oh, you can't think of going in yet," cried Beryl, who was warmed and exhilarated by her exercise; "you have been in the water no time. Come, let me dip you."
But Coral screamed and drew back as Beryl laid rather rough hands on her. Beryl, little used to having her will opposed, lost her temper at this, and the children, who up to this time had agreed most charmingly, now began to quarrel.
"You silly little thing," said Beryl, in a tone of contempt, "I do believe you are frightened. I would not be such a coward for something. There, go along with you; I don't want your company."
Coral ran sobbing to Lucy, and Beryl swam leisurely round the rock, and tried to believe that she was enjoying herself very much. But in truth she was feeling too angry with Coral to be very happy.
"Coral was a silly, cross, disagreeable little thing," she said to herself again and again, not being at all willing to acknowledge that she too had been cross and disagreeable.
"How could you be so unkind to Miss Coral?" said Lucy, when Beryl at length came out of the water, and went into the garden-house to be dressed. "The poor child has been sobbing like to break her heart. I wonder at you, Miss Beryl, treating a poor little motherless girl like that!"
Now, Beryl was already beginning to feel ashamed of herself, but she was not willing to acknowledge this to Lucy. At her nurse's words her heart grew hard again.
"I don't care," she said defiantly. "Coral was much more cross than I was. She is a horrid little thing."
"Well, I never! Miss Beryl!" exclaimed Lucy, lifting up her hands in astonishment. "And to think how anxious you were to have her for a little sister. No one would have thought, to hear you talk of her then, that you would so soon behave badly to her."