should find, when I wanted to fix the date of your birth, that I could
not determine the day or the hour when it took place. All was confusion
in my poor brain. But it was strange that no one else could, any more
than I. One thing only I can tell you about it. As I carried you across
the room to lay you down--for I assisted at your birth--I happened to
look up to the window. Then I saw what I did not forget, although I did
not think of it again till many days after--a bright star was shining on
the very tip of the thin crescent moon."

"Oh, then," said I, "it is possible to determine the day and the very
hour when my birth took place."

"See the good of book-learning!" replied she. "When you work it out,
just let me know, my dear, that I may remember it."

"That I will."

A silence of some moments followed. Margaret resumed:

"I am afraid you will laugh at my foolish fancies, Duncan; but in
thinking over all these things, as you may suppose I often do, lying
awake in my lonely bed, the notion sometimes comes to me: What if my
Duncan be the youth whom his wicked brother hurled into the ravine, come
again in a new body, to live out his life, cut short by his brother's
hatred? If so, his persecution of you, and of your mother for your sake,
is easy to understand. And if so, you will never be able to rest till
you find your fere, wherever she may have been born on the face of the
earth. For born she must be, long ere now, for you to find. I misdoubt
me much, however, if you will find her without great conflict and
suffering between, for the Powers of Darkness will be against you;