Then everything seemed very flat, for life had been rather exciting lately. It is true that Patsey had never been allowed to take an active part in the election, her father expressing himself somewhat strongly in condemnation of such candidates as "turned their little daughters into sandwich-men and their young sons into phonographs"; but she had been permitted to wear a blue rosette when she drove into the town with her governess. And sometimes people who knew her cheered her as they passed, and it was pleasant to feel so important. It was curious, too, that although all the servants were so loud in their abuse of the new member, they none of them seemed in the least cast down by the result of the election; and Patsey’s gentle little soul was puzzled by a partisanship that loudly disparaged the conqueror while yet it held no sympathy for the vanquished. All morning it rained, but after lunch the sun came out, and Patsey’s governess, who had a cold, bade her put on her overshoes and go and play in the garden, for half an hour by herself. Now, Patsey’s father had given her a bicycle just a week before, and although she was not yet an expert rider, still, she could get along, and it struck her that it would be a good opportunity to practise by riding up and down the drive. A stray gardener helped her on, and she found herself riding so beautifully that when she came to the lodge and saw that the great gates were open, the spirit of adventure seized upon her and bore her through them, out on to the high road. Patsey had never been in the road alone in all her life before, so that she felt most bold and daring, and the feeling was so new and delightful that she rode on for half a mile, finally turning into a quiet lane that led to the cemetery which lay a couple of miles outside the town. Here it was very muddy, and Patsey had not gone very far before her bicycle skidded violently. She tried to save herself with one foot, but it twisted under her, and she came down with the bicycle on the top of her. When she tried to get up again she found that one of her ankles was horribly swollen and painful, and that she couldn’t stand. It was a very woebegone little figure that sat weeping at the side of the road. The "fond adventure" had indeed ended disastrously, and Patsey bitterly repented her of her enterprise, and longed for her governess or nurse. 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.