When at last the short list was agreed upon, it was very short indeed. It contained only two names—Nicole John, who wanted to be an architect, and Birgitta Hetmansen, who was a painter.

Miss John exploded within a week. In reply to Snelgrove’s letter, asking her to meet the executors for a preliminary talk, there came a reply from her father saying that his daughter’s health would make the acceptance of any such benefaction entirely out of the question; he expressed huffy surprise that the executors had not thought of consulting him before entering into a plan to take his daughter from her home. Nothing further was seen or heard of Miss John.

Miss Hetmansen was a different matter. She appeared with a large portfolio of her work, and photographs of pictures which she had sold. She had some newspaper clippings in which her drawings and paintings were given favourable criticism. She had a very good letter from her teacher. She was a dark, personable, quiet girl and she pleased Miss Puss by comporting herself like a lady—not a lady of Miss Puss’s own era, but the nearest thing that could be expected in these dark days.

She knew what she wanted. Her desire was to go to Paris, and she could name the teachers with whom she wanted to study, and knew where they were to be found. In all, the executors had three meetings with Miss Hetmansen, and at the last of these her teacher appeared, and spoke of her in high terms. The executors were delighted. It looked as though they had found their swan.

But one day Solly was called to the telephone to speak to Miss Puss. “We must have a meeting at once,” said she; “I have terrible news.” When the executors had gathered a few nights later, she brought out this news with a great show of reluctance. She had it on good authority that Miss Hetmansen was not a virgin.

“Does it matter?” said Solly.

“Let us never forget that the Louisa Hansen Bridgetower Trust is the creation and memorial of a woman who stood for everything that was finest in Canadian life,” said Miss Puss. “We are certainly not going to spend one cent of her money on a hussy.”

“She’s not a hussy,” said Solly. “She’s very nice. You said so yourself.”

“Any girl of whom it is possible to say what I have just said, when she is a mere twenty years old, is a hussy,” said Miss Puss. She then fixed the Dean with a bloodshot green eye, and continued, with menace. “And if this is brought to a vote, don’t suppose that you men can overrule me. I’ll take it to the courts for a decision, if need be. Perhaps you care nothing for these things, but I knew Louisa’s mind as none of you ever did.” She was ready for war. “If you are afraid to tell this girl that she is not acceptable, and why, I am quite ready to take that duty on myself.”

But it was agreed that this would be unnecessary. Miss Hetmansen’s letters and pictures were returned to her by mail, with a note saying that if she heard nothing further from the executors within seven days, it would mean that her application had been unsuccessful. Miss Hetmansen was not a fool. She knew why she had been refused. She had succumbed to the importunities of her teacher coolly, and almost absent-mindedly, with a vague feeling that an affair might do something for her colour sense. Apparently all it had done was to lose her a lot of money, and make her teacher untrustworthy as a critic of her work. She did not really care. She had great faith in her talent and she would get to Paris anyway. She was not the gossipy sort, but she remarked to a few people that the Bridgetower Trust, as it had now begun to be called, was primarily a good conduct prize, and strictly for amateurs.

And thus the trustees were left without a candidate, and it was June.

A superstitious belief persists in Canada that nothing of importance can be done in the summer. The sun, which exacts the uttermost from Nature, seems to have a numbing effect upon the works of man. Thus Matthew Snelgrove, while assuring Solly that he was going ahead at full speed in settling Mrs Bridgetower’s estate, went to his office later in the morning, and left it earlier in the afternoon, and was quite unavailable at night. During the whole of August he went with his wife to visit her girlhood home in Nova Scotia, where he gave himself up to disapproving contemplation of the sadly unruly behaviour of the sea. Miss Puss Pottinger, according to her custom, went to Preston Springs for two weeks in June, to drink the waters and then, greatly refreshed, she went to a severely Anglican lakeside resort in Muskoka, and there hobnobbed with some Sisters of St John who had a mission nearby. Solly and Veronica went on a leisurely, cheap motor trip, hoping that a change of air might hasten the conception which had, so far, eluded them. They needed a holiday from the obtrusive benevolence of their cook Ethel, who had stayed with them at a reduced salary, and never allowed them for a moment to forget it; they were learning that a faithful family retainer is a two-edged sword. The Dean went to his summer cottage, removed his clerical collar and settled himself to fish by day and read detective stories by night. They were all glad to forget about the Bridgetower Trust.

But early in September Solly woke up one morning with a painful sense that only three months remained in which to make a choice. “We must get to work at once,” said he to Veronica.

“Is there really such a hurry?” said she. Their holiday had greatly improved her health, and she looked dark, beautiful and serious as she lay by him in the large, old-fashioned bed. “Would a few months make such a difference?”

The will says, “Within a calendar year of the date of my death”. Nobody would object if we stretched it a little, I suppose, but I am determined that it shall be carried out to the letter. Besides, I want to make old Snelgrove jump. He has a very poor opinion of me, and so has Puss. I’ll show them. We’ll send an accordion-player or a soap sculptor abroad to study, if need be, but we’ll do it in the prescribed way and in the prescribed time.”

“You’ve become very determined.”

“I have indeed.”

“If you’re absolutely stuck for somebody to squander your Mum’s money on, why don’t you have a look at Monny Gall?” said Cobbler to Solly. It would be wrong to say that Solly had confided the growing embarrassment of the Trustees to his friend; Cobbler had been insatiably curious about everything connected with the Bridgetower Trust since he heard of it on Christmas Day, and he wormed information out of Solly and Veronica at every opportunity. It fascinated him, he explained, to think of so much lovely money looking for somebody to spend it.

“Who’s Monny Gall?”

“If you ever listened to your local radio station you would know. She is the soprano of the Heart and Hope Gospel Quartet, who broadcast on behalf of the Thirteenth Apostle Tabernacle five mornings of the week, from nine-thirty to nine forty-five. I breakfast a bit later than you proletarians, and I never miss the H. & H.”

“Do you mean that it is good?”

“It is very good in its way. That’s to say, it primes the pump of sweet self-pity, mingled with tremulous self-reproach and a strong sense of never having had a square deal from life, which passes for religion with a lot of people—housewives mostly. It is run by an unctuous gorilla who calls himself Pastor Sidney Beamis; he dishes out the Hope in a short, moderately disgusting prayer in which he tells God that we’re all pretty awful but that the Thirteenth Apostles are having a bash at sainthood. The Heart is supplied by the Quartet, which is composed of his own family and Monny Gall. Pastor Beamis supplies a hollow, gutty bass; his son Wesley weighs in with a capon tenor—all headvoice and tremolo; Ma Beamis has a contralto tone like a cow mooing in a railway tunnel; and Monny Gall has a very nice soprano indeed—sweet, pure, and very naturally produced. You should hear them in Eden Must Have Been Like Granny’s Garden, or Ten Baby Fingers and Ten Baby Toes, That Was My Mother’s Rosary.”