IN A FIELD
A child of three or four was playing in the tall grass among the nodding buttercups and daisies. I watched her as she played. She seemed a fit companion of the flowers, this sweet babe. I longed to feel the touch of her little fingers on my face.
But as I advanced to where she was playing I stopped abruptly with the sense of sudden chill. My heart even grew cold.
Was I having a vision, was it an intuition of the future—or was this a meaningless phantom!
I had been reading of late a modern philosopher whose translator had made much use of that somewhat ghostly word. Perhaps that was what had given rise to this inexplicable thing. For as I stood there watching the child there flashed across my consciousness a changing vision of her destiny.
It was terrible.
It struck me that it might be better if she could be taken now while innocent and sweet.
I caught myself back from the act of judging life and death.
I had been the momentary victim of a freakish fancy.
I gazed at the child again, and I saw a strange thing, as clearly as I see you now.