Mr. Stone followed her. “Why?” he said. Then, grasping his brow, he added: “If it would do you any good, my dear, to hear a page or two, I could read to you.” Bianca shook her head. “No; talk to me!” Mr. Stone answered simply: “I have forgotten.” “You talk to that little girl,” murmured Bianca. Mr. Stone seemed to lose himself in reverie. “If that is true,” he said, following out his thoughts, “it must be due to the sex instinct not yet quite extinct. It is stated that the blackcock will dance before his females to a great age, though I have never seen it.” “If you dance before her,” said Bianca, with her face averted, “can't you even talk to me?” “I do not dance, my dear,” said Mr. Stone; “I will do my best to talk to you.” There was a silence, and he began to pace the room. Bianca, by the empty fireplace, watched a shower of rain driving past the open window. “This is the time of year,” said Mr. Stone suddenly; “when lambs leap off the ground with all four legs at a time.” He paused as though for an answer; then, out of the silence, his voice rose again--it sounded different: “There is nothing in Nature more symptomatic of that principle which should underlie all life. Live in the future; regret nothing; leap! A lamb which has left earth with all four legs at once is the symbol of true life. That she must come down again is but an inevitable accident. 'In those days men were living on their pasts. They leaped with one, or, at the most, two legs at a time; they never left the ground, or in leaving, they wished to know the reason why. It was this paralysis'”--Mr. Stone did not pause, but, finding himself close beside his desk, took up his pen--“'it was this paralysis of the leaping nerve which undermined their progress. Instead of millions of leaping lambs, ignorant of why they leaped, they were a flock of sheep lifting up one leg and asking whether it was or was not worth their while to lift another.'” The words were followed by a silence, broken only by the scratching of the quill with which Mr. Stone was writing. Having finished, he again began to pace the room, and coming suddenly on his daughter, stopped short. Touching her shoulder timidly, he said: “I was talking to you, I think, my dear; where were we?” Bianca rubbed her cheek against his hand. “In the air, I think.” “Yes, yes,” said Mr. Stone, “I remember. You must not let me wander from the point again.” “No, dear.”