It was such a lonely road. Except on Sundays, when people went to take flowers to the cemetery, hardly any one went up or down, and the awful prospect of sitting there till some one should come from home to look for her—and why should they look for her in that particular road?—confronted Patsey with chilly menace.
The January sunshine faded early, and she began to feel very cold.
Presently she heard quick footsteps coming from the direction of the cemetery, and a man appeared in sight. As he reached the prostrate bicycle and the doleful little figure seated beside it, he stopped, exclaiming, "Hullo! What's to do here? Have you tumbled off, my dear? I wouldn't sit there, though, it's so wet."
"I can't get up," poor Patsey faltered; "I've hurt my foot; it's all gone fat and funny, and it does pain so. I can't stand. Oh, could you? could you—call in at my home on your way back and tell them to send the carriage for me? It would be so very kind of you. Do you think you could——?"
The man stooped down and looked at the poor little foot. He touched it gently and shook his head, saying, "It's rather a bad sprain, I fear; just tell me where you live and I'll carry you home. Then they can get a doctor and have it fomented and bound. I'd best tie it up now as well as I can, so as not to shake you more than I can help."
The man took out a large handkerchief of brilliant yellow silk, and Patsey shuddered. "Oh, please don't!" she cried. "I mustn't wear anything yellow, not to-day of all days; it would be so disloyal to daddie. If it must be tied up, please take mine—but I don't think it need be."
As Patsey dragged a damp and dirty little square of once-white cambric from her pocket the man laughed.
"That's no use," he said. "If little Tory ladies go and sprain their ankles just like common folk, they must bear a bandage even if it's the wrong colour."
And without more ado this masterful man bound up the little foot with his gaudy handkerchief very deftly and kindly.
"I hope we shan't meet anybody," said Patsey, when he had lifted her into his arms, having carried the bicycle behind the hedge for safety. "It would be so unkind of me to wear yellow to-day."