The speaker is a sixty-year-old politician visiting a convent school to review its educational practices. As he observes the students, he falls into a deep reverie about his own aging, the passage of time, and a lost love from his youth. He views his current physical state self-deprecatingly as a comfortable old scarecrow but maintains a friendly, smiling demeanor for the children.

Maud is a woman from the speaker's youth whom he loved deeply and remembers with great reverence. In his memories, she possesses incredible beauty that he compares to the mythological figures Leda and Helen of Troy. Though she has grown old alongside him, he still respects her enduring strength and visualizes her with the timeless beauty of a Renaissance painting.

An older woman in a white hood who works at the convent school. She kindly answers the speaker's inquiries and explains the modern, Montessori-style curriculum the girls follow.

The young girls studying at the convent school under modern educational principles. They learn reading, mathematics, singing, and sewing, representing youth and the beginning of the human life cycle. Their presence causes the speaker to reflect on the nature of growing up and the expectations placed upon them by mothers and teachers.