Garda remained but a moment; while they were looking at the roses she walked slowly on, following her heavenly wall. "She is but a child," said the Doctor, looking after her. "We have perhaps kept her one too long." "On the contrary, that is her charm," replied Winthrop. "How old is she?" "Barely sixteen. If her father had lived, it would perhaps have been better for her; she would have had in that case, probably, more seriousness--a little more. Mistress Thorne's ideas concerning the training of children are admirable, most admirable; but they presuppose a certain kind of child, and Garda wasn't that kind at all; I may say, indeed, the contrary. Mistress Thorne has therefore found herself at fault now and then, her precedents have failed her; she has been met by perplexities, sometimes I have even thought her submerged in them and floundering--if I may use such an expression of the attitude of a cultured lady. The truth is, her perceptions have been to blame." "Yet I have thought her perceptions unusually keen," said Winthrop. "So they are, so they are; but they all advance between certain lines, they are narrow. Understand me, however--I would not have them wider; I was not wishing that, I was only wishing that poor Edgar, the father, could have lived ten years longer. Too wide a perception, sir, in a woman, a perception of things in general--general views in short--I regard as an open door to immorality; women so endowed are sure to go wrong--as witness Aspasia. It was a beautiful provision of nature that made the feminine perceptions, as a general rule, so limited, so confined to details, to the opinions and beliefs of their own families and neighborhoods; in this restricted view lies all their safety." "And ours?" suggested Winthrop. "Ah, you belong to the new school of thought, I perceive," observed the Doctor, stroking his smoothly shaven chin with his plump gloved hand. The two men had begun to walk onward again, following their guide who was now at the end of the rose wall. Here she disappeared; when they reached the spot they found that she had taken a path which turned northward along a little ridge--a path bordered on each side by stiff Spanish-bayonets.