"I've got to be whipped to-night," she answered drearily; "and I wish I hadn't. I do get so tired of being whipped and shaken."
Her little face looked pinched and pathetic as she spoke, and for the first time her father had a suspicion of what punishment was to this child—a thing as inevitable as disease, a continually recurring torture, but quite without effect upon her conduct—and his heart contracted with a qualm of pity.
"What are you going to be whipped for now?" he asked.
"We went to tea at the vicarage, and I ran away home."
"Why?"
"Because of the great green waves. They rush up the rocks—wish—st—st!" (she took a step forward, and threw up her little arms in illustration)—"then fall, and roll back, and gather, and come rushing on again; and I feel every time—every time—that they are coming right at me!"—she clutched her throat as if she were suffocating; "and if I had stayed I should have shrieked, and then I should have been whipped. So I came away."
"But you expect to be whipped for coming away?"
"Yes. But you see I don't have the waves as well. And mamma won't say I was afraid."
"Were you afraid, Beth?" her father asked.
"No!" Beth retorted, stamping her foot indignantly. "If the waves did come at me, I could stand it. It's the coming—coming—coming—I can't bear. It makes me ache here." She clutched at her throat and chest again.