'I want you to read me a verse in the First Epistle of St. John, and the
third chapter. It is the fifteenth verse; can you find it?'

'Yes, sir,' and with an eager importance Teddy turned over the leaves.

'Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer,' he read solemnly.

'That will do. Now think it over for five minutes in silence, and then
tell me what your thoughts are about it.'

The boy hung his head in shame; he folded his arms and sat immovable
till the five minutes were over, then he said timidly, 'I wouldn't hate
a brother. I'd like to have one. Do you think it means the same when
it's a girl?'

'Precisely the same--a brother means any person in the world, man, woman,
or child.'

'Then I ought to be hung.'

There was much self-pity in Teddy's tone. Mr. Upton did not smile, he was
gazing abstractedly out of the window, and said slowly, 'The root of
murder is anger. The same motive that prompts a passionate statement,
prompts a passionate and perhaps fatal blow.'

There was silence; then in a more cheerful tone the rector turned to the
little culprit.

'And now tell me the whole story, and who it was that you spoke to
in church.'