She ran off after her companions, who were now walking soberly enough across the field path which led back into the high road. But Florrie's spirits were quite unchecked. She laughed at the thought of Mrs Lee's amazement, she laughed at Carrie and Ada's fright, she repeated with more laughing the various vulgar jokes which had passed with the lads and with Polly and Liza. "I never thought," said Ada indignantly, "that you'd join company, Florence Whittaker, with such as them. It's as much as I'd do to pass the time of day with them." "Now then," said Florrie, "didn't Miss Mordaunt say last Sunday as it was very stuck up and improper to object to Maria Wilson coming to the class because she's a _general_? and she said I was a kind girl to let her look over my Bible, so there!" "Maria Wilson do behave herself," said Carrie. "Well, Carrie Jones, don't you talk about behaviour! Do Miss Mullins always behave herself? Don't she walk out at the back with the young men in the shop, and wait outside the church for them? And you're glad enough to walk with _her_. I don't care how people behave so long as I can have my fun, and I don't care who they are neither." Ada and Carrie, brought face to face with one of the practical puzzles of life for girls of their standing, the difficulty of "keeping oneself up" in a right and not in a wrong way, were far too conscious of inconsistency to have anything to say, and Ada changed the subject. "Well, anyway, I wouldn't be you to-morrow morning, Florrie," she said. "I like to get a rise out of Mrs Lee," said Florrie, "and I don't care a bit for her. I shall just enjoy it." Carrie and Ada did not believe her, but, worse luck for Florence, it was perfectly true. She did not care. The power of calculating consequences was either absent from her nature or entirely undeveloped in it. She was not a bit put out by her companions' annoyance, and laughed at them as she parted from them at the upper gate of the cemetery. The sun was still shining brightly on the clean gravel walks, the white marble crosses and columns, and on the many flowers planted beneath them. Apart from its associations, Rapley cemetery was a cheerful, pleasant place, and Florence, as she noted a new-made grave, heaped up with white flowers, only thought that there was an extra number of pretty wreaths there, without a care as to the grief which they represented. Mr Whittaker was very proud of the good taste and good order of his cemetery, and took a great deal of trouble to have everything kept as it should be.