nce that were
so dear to his unsociable heart.

Friday afternoon he finished his job and went home to Carmody. Soon
after his departure Mrs. Rachel Lynde drove by, having braved the mud of
the lower road out of curiosity to see what the hall looked like in its
new coat of paint. When she rounded the spruce curve she saw.

The sight affected Mrs. Lynde oddly. She dropped the reins, held up her
hands, and said "Gracious Providence!" She stared as if she could not
believe her eyes. Then she laughed almost hysterically.

"There must be some mistake . . . there must. I knew those Pyes would make
a mess of things."

Mrs. Lynde drove home, meeting several people on the road and stopping
to tell them about the hall. The news flew like wildfire. Gilbert
Blythe, poring over a text book at home, heard it from his father's
hired boy at sunset, and rushed breathlessly to Green Gables, joined on
the way by Fred Wright. They found Diana Barry, Jane Andrews, and Anne
Shirley, despair personified, at the yard gate of Green Gables, under
the big leafless willows.

"It isn't true surely, Anne?" exclaimed Gilbert.

"It is true," answered Anne, looking like the muse of tragedy. "Mrs.
Lynde called on her way from Carmody to tell me. Oh, it is simply
dreadful! What is the use of trying to improve anything?"

"What is dreadful?" asked Oliver Sloane, arriving at this moment with a
bandbox he had brought from town for Marilla.

"Haven't you heard?" said Jane wrathfully. "Well, its simply this. . .
Joshua Pye has gone and painted the hall blue instead of green. . .
a deep, brilliant blue, the shade they use for painting carts and
wheelbarrows. And Mrs. Lynde says it is the most hideous color for a
building, especially when combined with a red roof, that she ever saw
or imagined. You could simply have knocked me down with a feather when I
heard it. It's heartbreaking, after all the trouble we've had."

"How on earth could such a mistake have happened?" wailed Diana.

The blame of this unmerciful disaster was eventually narrowed down to
the Pyes. The Improvers had decided to use Morton-Harris paints and
the Morton-Harris paint cans were numbered according to a color card.
A purchaser chose his shade on the card and ordered by the accompanying
number. Number 147 was the shade of green desired and when Mr. Roger Pye
sent word to the Improvers by his son, John Andrew, that he was going to
town and would get their paint for them, the Improve