"You may say it if you like."
"I would rather you should."
"'He that hateth his brother is a murderer,'" said Josie. "But nurse isn't my brother, so when I hated her this afternoon, because she wouldn't let me help the little girl, it wasn't like that."
"I fancy the term may be taken generally, and all mankind are brethren in a sense. But do you never hate any one except nurse?"
"N—o," said Josie.
"Not me, for instance?"
"Leveson, I wish you wouldn't ask. I did once last week for half an hour, when you shut me up in my room alone one day. It wasn't that, though," said Josie, bursting into tears. "I wasn't a murderer at all."
Leveson leant forward, and kissed away the tears affectionately. "You know what the Bible says, Josie, so I won't press that point. Of course it means in spirit, not in deed. I only wanted you to see that we may commit sins ourselves, quite as black in the sight of God, as those which may seem worst in the eyes of men. I'm not excusing the sin of stealing—don't think that. Sin is sin, in whatever shape it comes, only I sometimes think that our little failings, as we call them, and our careless yielding to slight temptation, may wear as dark a dye in God's sight as the sudden desperate act of a poor half-famished creature, who is driven to it by utter want and misery."
"And wasn't it right to put her in prison?" asked Josie.
"Perfectly right. Crime must be punished; but we must not be like the Pharisee, Josie—'I thank Thee that I am not as other men are.' Better one and all of us to say humbly before God—'Be merciful to me a sinner.'"