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That night there was blank dismay in every Avonlea house where an
Improver lived. The gloom at Green Gables was so intense that it
quenched even Davy. Anne wept and would not be comforted.
"I must cry, even if I am almost seventeen, Marilla," she sobbed.
"It is so mortifying. And it sounds the death knell of our society.
We'll simply be laughed out of existence."
In life, as in dreams, however, things often go by contraries. The
Avonlea people did not laugh; they were too angry. Their money had
gone to paint the hall and consequently they felt themselves bitterly
aggrieved by the mistake. Public indignation centered on the Pyes.
Roger Pye and John Andrew had bungled the matter between them;
and as for Joshua Pye, he must be a born fool not to suspect
there was something wrong when he opened the cans and saw the color
of the paint. Joshua Pye, when thus animadverted upon, retorted
that the Avonlea taste in colors was no business of his, whatever
his private opinion might be; he had been hired to paint the hall,
not to talk about it; and he meant to have his money for it.
The Improvers paid him his money in bitterness of spirit, after
consulting Mr. Peter Sloane, who was a magistrate.
"You'll have to pay it," Peter told him. "You can't hold him
responsible for the mistake, since he claims he was never told
what the color was supposed to be but just given the cans and
told to go ahead. But it's a burning shame and that hall
certainly does look awful."
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