There was a merchant with a general shop, and he had a servant girl who was as honest as she was hardworking — so capable that he left her to manage the shop on her own and gave himself no more worry about it. Everything he set her to do she did well, and his business prospered.
Then some envious neighbors came to him and said the girl had been giving his goods away to every beggar who asked, and there was nothing left. He watched, and saw it was true: to every poor person who came, she gave whatever they asked, for the love of God, until the shelves and store-rooms were empty. And yet — whenever a paying customer came, she always had what they needed. He could not explain it, and for a while he let it go.
But the whispering continued. “What will happen when she dies?” someone said to him one day. “Then where will you be?” He thought: that is true. So he went and asked her plainly where everything had gone.
She did not answer. She knelt down and prayed — and as she prayed, all the shelves and store-rooms filled again, right to the top, with every kind of goods as before.
After that she left his service. She built herself a little cell, walled in on all sides, next to the church of Sant’Antonio, and there she lived in continuous prayer. She knocked out a single brick to make a small hole in the wall, and through it she heard Mass every day.
One morning she was not at her hole. They opened the cell and found her lying on the floor, her hands crossed on her breast, and the room was full of a beautiful fragrance — for she had been made holy there, and her soul had gone to God.
