"The very first thing we ought to do when we get started is to have that
hall painted," said Diana, as they drove past the Avonlea hall, a rather
shabby building set down in a wooded hollow, with spruce trees hooding
it about on all sides. "It's a disgraceful looking place and we must
attend to it even before we try to get Mr. Levi Boulder to pull his
house down. Father says we'll never succeed in DOING that. Levi Boulter
is too mean to spend the time it would take."

"Perhaps he'll let the boys take it down if they promise to haul
the boards and split them up for him for kindling wood," said Anne
hopefully. "We must do our best and be content to go slowly at first.
We can't expect to improve everything all at once. We'll have to educate
public sentiment first, of course."

Diana wasn't exactly sure what educating public sentiment meant; but it
sounded fine and she felt rather proud that she was going to belong to a
society with such an aim in view.

"I thought of something last night that we could do, Anne. You know
that three-cornered piece of ground where the roads from Carmody and
Newbridge and White Sands meet? It's all grown over with young spruce;
but wouldn't it be nice to have them all cleared out, and just leave the
two or three birch trees that are on it?"

"Splendid," agreed Anne gaily. "And have a rustic seat put under the
birches. And when spring comes we'll have a flower-bed made in the
middle of it and plant geraniums."

"Yes; only we'll have to devise some way of getting old Mrs. Hiram
Sloane to keep her cow off the road, or she'll eat our geraniums