"
She flashed a glance around the quilt that cowed the gossips.
Even Mrs. George Pye's eyes flickered and waned and quailed.
Nothing more was said until Sara had picked up her glasses and
marched from the room. Even then they dared not speak above a
whisper. Mrs. Pye, alone, smarting from snub, ventured to
ejaculate, "Pity save us!" as Sara slammed the door.
For the next fortnight gossip and rumor held high carnival in
Avonlea and Newbridge, and Mrs. Eben grew to dread the sight of a
visitor.
"They're bound to talk about the Baxter failure and criticize
Lige," she deplored to Mrs. Jonas. "And it riles Sara up so
terrible. She used to declare that she hated Lige, and now she
won't listen to a word against him. Not that I say any, myself.
I'm sorry for him, and I believe he's done his best. But I can't
stop other people from talking."
One evening Harmon Andrews came in with a fresh budget of news.
"The Baxter business is pretty near wound up at last," he said,
as he lighted his pipe. "Peter has got his lawsuits settled and
has hushed up the talk about swindling, somehow. Trust him for
slipping out of a scrape clean and clever. He don't seem to worry
any, but Lige looks like a walking skeleton. Some folks pity
him, but I say he should have kept the run of things better and
not have trusted everything to Peter. I hear he's going out West
in the Spring, to take up land in Alberta and try his hand at
farming.
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