Hezekiah Grindley--which was big enough in all conscience as it
was--and shrivelled up his little hard heart. The Grindleys and
the Appleyards visited no more. As a sensible fellow ought to have
seen for himself, so thought Hezekiah, the Sauce had altered all
things. The possibility of a marriage between their children,
things having remained equal, might have been a pretty fancy; but
the son of the great Grindley, whose name in three-foot letters
faced the world from every hoarding, would have to look higher than
a printer's daughter. Solomon, a sudden and vehement convert to
the principles of mediaeval feudalism, would rather see his only
child, granddaughter of the author of The History of Kettlewell and
other works, dead and buried than married to a grocer's son, even
though he might inherit a fortune made out of poisoning the public
with a mixture of mustard and sour beer. It was many years before
Nathaniel George and Janet Helvetia met one another again, and when
they did they had forgotten one another,


Hezekiah S. Grindley, a short, stout, and pompous gentleman, sat
under a palm in the gorgeously furnished drawing-room of his big
house at Notting Hill. Mrs. Grindley, a thin, faded woman, the
despair of her dressmaker, sat as near to the fire as its massive
and imposing copper outworks would permit, and shivered. Grindley
junior, a fair-haired, well-shaped youth, with eyes that the other
sex found attractive, leant with his hands in his pockets against a
scrupulously robed statue of Diana, and appeared uncomfortable.

"I'm making the money--making it hand over fist. All you'll have
to do will be to spend it," Grindley senior was explaining to his
son and heir.