"I had not," said she, "but I think I never did anything against the Son of God, and He has taken from me a son who was twenty-one years old, a son as nice as there was in the parish. Well I did not half mind that--the Son of God's taking him from me--until a year from that day He took the second son from me. Two years from that day the third son was taken from me, and then I went and took a bag with me and said that I would never again do another day's service to God. I was [always] so good to the Son of God and the glorious Virgin that I never thought that He would put such punishment upon me. But He put such punishment on me that I went looking for alms. Away [from my home] I went and proceeded to look for alms, and I never met house or wattled-shelter. A man came to me before you [came] and he said to-me, 'What has brought you here?' I told him that the Son of God had taken my three children from me. 'Go in,' said he, 'into yonder house in which you see the light?' I went in, and what should I see there but a corpse and three lighted candles. I remained there watching the body and plenty of grief and fear on me. At the hour of midnight a slumber of sleeping fell upon me, for I was hungry and troubled. When I awoke out of the sleep I found food and drink and everything I desired laid out before me. I ate and drank my enough. After that I fell asleep, and when I awoke there was nothing there but a bare field, and my bag laid under my head. I arose and stood up and threw the bag over my shoulders and turned back again, and the same man met me a second time. 'Where did you spend the night?' said he. 'I spent it watching a corpse,' said I. 'Did you get your enough to eat and drink?' 'I did,' said I. 'Why did you take up with misery?' 'Well I did take up with misery,' said I, 'I had a son who was twenty-one years old and he was taken from me. A year from that day the second son was taken from me, and two years from that day the third son was taken. I went off then and I said that I would not do one morsel of God's rules any more.'
'Go home, now,' said the man, 'God was so good to you that He did not desire you to find shame or scandal. That first son that you had--he was to have been hanged [if he had lived] for slaying a man. And the second son, he was to have been banished far away to an island in the sea for stealing cattle [had he lived]. And the third son--a woman was to have sworn against him that he was the father of her child, although he never had anything, good or bad, to do with her. Go home now and mind your own business. God had so much consideration for you that He did not wish such pain to come down on you or your children, since you were yourself so good to the poor. Those [three sons] shall be three candles before you, and the three don't know which of them will arrange your bed under you in the Heaven of God.'"