A trust had been formed with young Mr. Pauncey, in whom, as they assured him, they had complete confidence, as sole trustee. The six separate estates were pooled and the income from the whole capital could be drawn on by the cheque of any of the six beneficiaries. The disadvantage of this scheme, as young Mr. Pauncey had ventured to point out at the time, was that if any one of them quarrelled with the other five, or got married, it was in her power to cause them considerable inconvenience by appropriating more than her share of the income, or, if she wrote her cheques at the right moment, the whole of it. It was at this point that Aunt Anne had interposed with her famous speech, and young Mr. Pauncey had ceased to make objections, probably consoling himself with the reflection that, as trustee, he could put an end to the inconvenience at any time that it should arise.
But the sisters had never quarrelled and none of them had married, and young Mr. Pauncey at the age of seventy-five was obliged to admit to himself that the most highly irregular arrangement he had ever legalised had also turned out to have worked with the least possible amount of friction. No further adjustments had had to be made as one sister after the other had died; none of them had made a will or had needed to; and Aunt Laura, the last survivor, was now in automatic possession of the whole, as all the sisters had wished that the last survivor should be. "We are agreed," Aunt Ellen had said in conclave, "that the bulk of the money shall go back to dear Edward, or to his children if he marries and has any; let the last of us who is left alive carry out our joint wishes without being tied up by promises or papers. That to my mind is the ideal arrangement. Circumstances may arise which we cannot now foresee. Let the one of us who is spared longest have power to deal with them, under the kind advice of young Mr. Pauncey, if he also is spared so long, and not be hampered by what is called red tape."
And so the passing away of one sister after another had not been harassed by questions of property, and it was not until Aunt Ellen the eldest and Aunt Laura the youngest had been left alone together that any discussion at all had arisen as to the disposal of the money which they shared. They had talked of it together, and had called young Mr. Pauncey into advice.