"And you, my own? Will another little voice on earth prevent His hearing you? Do the thousands of thousands always singing to Him above prevent His hearing you? And what would the world do if the only voice worth listening to were thine? It cannot be heard beyond one church, or one street. And the good Lord has ten thousand churches, and cities full of people who want to hear."
"But thou, mother! Thou and Lenichen, and the bread!"
"It was the raven that brought the bread," she said smiling; "and thou art not even a raven,—only a little child to pick up the bread the raven brought."
He sat silent a few minutes, and then the terrible cloud of self and pride dropped off from his heart like a death-shroud, and he threw himself into her arms.
"Oh, mother, I see it all!" he said. "I am free again. I have only to sing to the blessed Lord of all, quite sure He listens, to Him alone, and to all else as just a little one of the all He loves."
And after the evening meal, and a game with Lenichen, the boy crept out to the Cathedral to say his prayers in one of the little chapels, and to thank God.
He knelt in the Lady chapel before the image of the Infant Christ on the mother's knees.
And as he knelt there, it came into his heart that all the next week was Passion week, "the still week," and would be silent; and the tears filled his eyes as he remembered how little he had enjoyed singing that day.
"How glad the little children of Jerusalem must have been," he thought, "that they sang to Jesus when they could. I suppose they never could again; for the next Friday He was dead. Oh, suppose He never let me sing to Him again!"
And tears and repressed sobs came fast at the thought, and he murmured aloud, thinking no one was near,—