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."

"Lambs," said Mr. Stone, "remind me at times of that young girl who comes
to copy for me. I make her skip to promote her circulation before tea.
I myself do this exercis