But Gottlieb looked grave and rather troubled.

“So few seem thinking just of His listening,” he said, doubtfully.  “There are the choir-master and the dean and chapter, and the other choristers, and the Cistercians, and the mothers of the other choristers, who wish them to sing best.”

She took his hand.  “So there were in that old Jerusalem,” she said.  “The Pharisees, who wanted to stop the children’s singing, and even the dear Disciples, who often thought they might be troublesome to the Master.  But the little ones sang for Him, and He knew, and was pleased.  And that is all we have to think of now.”

He kissed her, and went away with a lightened brow.

Many of the neighbors came in that afternoon to congratulate Magdalis on her boy—­his face, his voice, his gentle ways.

“And then he sings with such feeling,” said one.  “One sees it is in his heart.”

But in the evening Gottlieb came home very sad and desponding.  For some time he said nothing, and then, with a brave effort to restrain his tears, he murmured: 

“Oh, mother!  I am afraid it will soon be over.  I heard one of the priests say he thought they had a new chorister at the Cistercians whose voice is as good as mine.  So that the archduchess may not like our choir best, after all.”

The mother said nothing for a moment, and then she said: 

“Whose praise and love will the boy at the Cistercian convent sing, Gottlieb, if he has such a lovely voice?”

“God’s!—­the dear Heavenly Father and the Savior!” he said, reverently.

“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 to remember how little he had enjoyed singing that day.