But when he told his mother this, instead of looking delighted, as he
expected, she looked grave, and almost severe, and said:

"You only did your duty, my boy. It would have been a sin and a shame
to do otherwise. And, of course, you would not for the world."

"Certainly I would not, mother," he said.

But he felt a little chilled. Did his mother think it was always so
easy for boys to do their duty? and that every one did it?

Other people seemed to think it a very uncommon and noble thing to do
one's duty. And what, indeed, could the blessed saints do more?

So the slow poison of praise crept into the boy's heart. And while he
thought his life was being filled with light, unknown to him the
shadows were deepening,--the one shadow which eclipses the sun, the
terrible shadow of self.

For he could not but be conscious how, even in the cathedral, a kind of
hush and silence fell around when he began to sing.

And instead of the blessed presence of God filling the holy place, and
his singing in it, as of old, like a happy little bird in the sunshine,
his own sweet voice seemed to fill the place, rising and falling like a
tide up and down the aisles, leaping to the vaulted roof like a
fountain of joy, and dropping into the hearts of the multitude like dew
from heaven.