Annie had borne to her dour partner two children who had died.
Nathaniel George, with the luck supposed to wait on number three,
had lived on, and, inheriting fortunately the temperament of his
mother, had brought sunshine into the gloomy rooms above the shop
in High Street, Kensington. Mrs. Grindley, grown weak and fretful,
had rested from her labours.

Mrs. Appleyard's guardian angel, prudent like his protege, had
waited till Solomon's business was well established before
despatching the stork to Nevill's Court, with a little girl. Later
had sent a boy, who, not finding the close air of St. Dunstan to
his liking, had found his way back again; thus passing out of this
story and all others. And there remained to carry on the legend of
the Grindleys and the Appleyards only Nathaniel George, now aged
five, and Janet Helvetia, quite a beginner, who took lift
seriously.

There are no such things as facts. Narrow-minded folk--surveyors,
auctioneers, and such like--would have insisted that the garden
between the old Georgian house and Nevill's Court was a strip of
land one hundred and eighteen feet by ninety-two, containing a
laburnum tree, six laurel bushes, and a dwarf deodora. To
Nathaniel George and Janet Helvetia it was the land of Thule, "the
furthest boundaries of which no man has reached." On rainy Sunday
afternoons they played in the great, gloomy pressroom, where silent
ogres, standing motionless, stretched out iron arms to seize them
as they ran. Then just when Nathaniel George was eight, and Janet
Helvetia four and a half, Hezekiah launched the celebrated
"Grindley's Sauce." It added a relish to chops and steaks,
transformed cold mutton into a luxury, and swelled the head of