`` It will be a success if we are determined to succeed , '' I said . '' ` Where there is a will there is always a way . ' '' `` That 's just what Ursula Townley said when her father locked her in her room the night she was going to run away with Kenneth MacNair , '' said the Story Girl . We pricked up our ears , scenting a story . `` Who were Ursula Townley and Kenneth MacNair ? '' I asked . `` Kenneth MacNair was a first cousin of the Awkward Man 's grandfather , and Ursula Townley was the belle of the Island in her day . Who do you suppose told me the story -- no , read it to me , out of his brown book ? '' `` Never the Awkward Man himself ! '' I exclaimed incredulously . `` Yes , he did , '' said the Story Girl triumphantly . `` I met him one day last week back in the maple woods when I was looking for ferns . He was sitting by the spring , writing in his brown book . He hid it when he saw me and looked real silly ; but after I had talked to him awhile I just asked him about it , and told him that the gossips said he wrote poetry in it , and if he did would he tell me , because I was dying to know . He said he wrote a little of everything in it ; and then I begged him to read me something out of it , and he read me the story of Ursula and Kenneth . '' `` I do n't see how you ever had the face , '' said Felicity ; and even Cecily looked as if she thought the Story Girl had gone rather far . `` Never mind that , '' cried Felix , `` but tell us the story . That 's the main thing . '' `` I 'll tell it just as the Awkward Man read it , as far as I can , '' said the Story Girl , `` but I ca n't put all his nice poetical touches in , because I ca n't remember them all , though he read it over twice for me . '' CHAPTER II .
A WILL , A WAY AND A WOMAN `` One XXXXX , over a hundred years ago , Ursula Townley was waiting for Kenneth MacNair in a great beechwood , where brown nuts were falling and an October wind was making the leaves dance on the ground like pixy-people . ''
Felix Kenneth MacNair Man Townley Ursula day first gossips night