"I can't say he favors his mother," Mr. Grouse remarked.
"Oh, I had spots enough when I was young," she explained. "You see, all our family lose our spots as we grow up."
"I'm glad to say," Mr. Grouse said with a flirt of his tail, "that all our family keep their spots, every one of them."
"We get to be so swift-footed that we don't need spots," said Nimble's mother.
That speech seemed to displease Mr. Grouse.
"I hope," he cried, "you don't mean to say that we Grouse aren't swift!"
"No, indeed!" Nimble's mother answered hastily.
"I should hope not!" was Mr. Grouse's response to that. "For everybody knows that we go up like rockets at the slightest sign of danger."
"Exactly!" said Nimble's mother. "You are so swift that you don't really need those spots to help conceal yourself, once you're grown up."
"They're handy to have, all the same," he told her. "And as for this youngster of yours, you needn't worry much about him. He'll be safe enough in the woods. He looks just like a patch of sunlight that has fallen through a tree top upon a leaf-strewn bank."