have none." Alessia said that she scrupled giving them bread that was of such bad quality, and preferred giving them plentifully of that formed out of the good flour, to which Catherine replied: " Prepare the water, and bring hither the flour that you intended throwing away, I will myself make some loaves of it, to distribute to the poor of Jesus Christ."
Catherine first kneaded the paste, and then formed from a small quantity of the bad flour, such a number of loaves, and with such promptitude, that Alessia and her domestic who were looking on, could not recover from their astonishment; four or five times the amount of flour would have been requisite for making all the loaves which the blessed Catherine presented to Alessia that the latter might arrange them on the boards; and these loaves of bread had not the disagreeable odor of those that had been hitherto made from this flour. When the whole was used, Catherine sent the bread to the oven and caused it to be served at table. All who partook of it not only found it free from bitterness or any unusual odor, but on the contrary declared they " had never eaten any so pleasant." The affair was reported to Friar Thomas, Catherine's Confessor, who came with other learned Religious to examine these particulars; those pious men were in admiration at the view of the multiplied quantity of the loaves and their quality so marvelously corrected. A third prodigy succeeded these two: Catherine caused the loaves to be distributed; they were given copiously to the poor and to the Religious: no other bread was consumed in the house, and yet a great quantity was ever in the Pantry. Thus the Lord, by the intervention of his handmaid, signalized his power in three ways, on the occasion of her loaves;
