Lady Gytha, although she did not place much credence in the prediction of the old woman, was imbued, to some extent, with the superstitions and credulities of the age, and she summoned into her presence an astrologer, requesting him to cast the nativity of the child. He noted down the time and particulars of his birth, and promised a reply within the week. After a few days' absence he returned, and appeared before Lady Gytha with a clouded brow, she receiving him with a tremor of anxiety. "What do the stars reveal?" enquired she. "Are the tidings good or evil?" "Lady," replied he, "I have calculated the star of his nativity, and sorry am I to tell that it augurs evil rather than good. A great peril awaits the child, on the fourth day of the third moon after his second birthday. It is recorded in the starry volume that on that occasion he will perish by drowning." "Oh, say not so, wise sir. It would kill me as well. Are you assured that this fate is inevitable?" "Fate, lady, is inevitable; but there is one planet which presents a disturbing element in his horoscope, and it is possible that this fate may have been miscalculated, and that, through the influence of the planet, the threatening may be averted; and it will become you that, at the date indicated, you should take all possible precaution, in order that he should not be brought into the neighbourhood of water of any kind." The astrologer, having been rewarded generously for his services, and assured that all due precautions should be taken, he departed, murmuring to himself, "Fate is fate, and it cannot be averted." The Lady Gytha's whole existence was now absorbed in that of her child. He was scarcely ever out of her reach and sight, she watched over him with more than maternal care, if that were possible, and he continued to blossom out, with the promise of becoming everything she could wish--her support, her comfort, and the pride of her after-life. But these prospects of the future were overshadowed by a cloud--an anxious foreboding of what might happen on the fourth day of the third moon of his second year, which the stars marked with a doubtful and perhaps fatal prognostic. Could he but pass that dangerous point of life, the lowering cloud would dissolve into thin air, and for the future might be anticipated the glad sunshine of existence.