Rosa sewed the little that she could, but some days there was scarcely enough to eat at the panaderia, except the very few loaves in the case--the loaves that the three hardly knew whether to dare eat or not, for fear some one should come in and want to buy.

There were many other people who were poor and without work, and the little family kept their troubles to themselves.

The poor sick neighbor always came every day and was given bread.

Winter passed and spring arrived without much change in the panaderia's prospects.
"We could have eaten that ourselves," thought Rosa one night when the neighbor went out with the bread.
The grandmother had said that the poor were God's care, and he would bless those who for his sake fed them.
"But we keep on being poorer and poorer," thought Rosa with a sigh.
Then she reproached herself.

Had not her grandmother said that the Lord cared about the panaderia?
One day when spring was turning into summer, the poor neighbor came in earlier than usual.