“I do,” answered Roberts grimly. “Within six months. Men may live or die, but history must be written. The Yengi may not have smashed all of those forty jars....”
THE WISH
An Odd Fragment of Fiction
By MYRTLE LEVY GAYLORD
Burned and scarred by the hot breath of passion and the deep wounds of life, the mother took the newborn girl-child, Leonore, to her breast for the first time. She trembled with joy and pain at the touch of the greedy little lips.
Presently the woman and the child at her breast slept. The mother dreamed that out of a black sky a silver fairy appeared in a cloud of light.
“One wish, one wish only, for the newborn,” the fairy offered.
The mother, clutching the child closer to her, trembled and choked, and it seemed that she would not be able to answer. Finally words came, as if involuntarily:
“That she may not feel, that she may not suffer, that passion, love that scorches and does not warm, may never touch her!”
The fairy smiled a faint, far smile and inscribed a circle with her star-tipped wand.