"'Dear Lord,' she said, 'I knew you'd not forget your hungry children! Thank you, dear, heavenly Father!'"
"Then she rose with a wonderful happiness, and opened the basket."
"As she took out the things one by one, she told her neighbour 'it was just like the Lord,' for there was bread, and butter, tea and sugar, and a piece of bacon! 'And didn't we have a good supper!' she concluded."
"And did that really happen here, auntie?" asked Rose.
"Really happened here!" said Aunt Ruth. "The Lord is the same Lord always, 'rich unto all that call upon Him.'"
"But sometimes we ask for things and don't get an answer?" ventured Tom, in his downright fashion. "Why do you think that is, Auntie?"
"I think it may be this," said Aunt Ruth, slowly, "'your Heavenly Father knoweth what things you have need of.' Sometimes we ask for things we think we have need of, and God sees that to have them would have been the very worst thing for us."
Tom looked thoughtful for a minute, and the others were thinking of instances when they had asked and not received.
"Then how are we to know?" asked Tom at last.
"Ask for the thing you want, simply and trustfully, and say from your heart, 'If it is best for me, if it is according to Thy will—Thou knowest best,' and then leave it."