All our visitors are genuine Canadians, not immigrants as we and our neighbours are; and yet, do you know, they are so nice you would _hardly_ know them from English people.

Oh, they add to our social life very much when they come!" He had said so many things of this sort, ostensibly to Mrs.Rexford, really to Sophia, who was usually a party to his calls on her mother, that he had inspired in them some of his own pleasurable anticipation.
It was not until the summer visitors were come that they realised how great was the contrast between their own bare manner of living and the easy-going expenditure of these people, who were supposed to be such choice acquaintances for them.

Everything is relative.

They had not been mortified by any comparison of their own circumstances and those of Chellaston families, because, on one account and another, there had always appeared to be something to equalise the difference.

Either their neighbours, if better off, had not long ago begun as meagrely, or else they lacked those advantages of culture or social standing which the Rexfords could boast.