“I don’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 can’t put all his nice poetical touches in, because I can’t remember them all, though he read it over twice for me.”
CHAPTER II. A WILL, A WAY AND A WOMAN
“One day, 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.”
“What are pixy-people?” demanded Peter, forgetting the Story Girl’s dislike of interruptions.
“Hush,” whispered Cecily. “That is only one of the Awkward Man’s poetical touches, I guess.”
“There were cultivated fields between the grove and the dark blue gulf; but far behind and on each side were woods, for Prince Edward Island a hundred years ago was not what it is today. The settlements were few and scattered, and the population so scanty that old Hugh Townley boasted that he knew every man, woman and child in it.
“Old Hugh was quite a noted man in his day. He was noted for several things—he was rich, he was hospitable, he was proud, he was masterful—and he had for daughter the handsomest young woman in Prince Edward Island.