But the Colonel, for all his title, had a forest of poor relations and a brushwood swamp of shabby friends, for he had scrambled up to fortune, and now the time was come when he must define his new social position.
This is always an awkward business in town or country.

An exclusive alliance between two powers is often the same thing as a declaration of war against a third.

Rockland was soon split into a triumphant minority, invited to Mrs.Sprowle's party, and a great majority, uninvited, of which the fraction just on the border line between recognized "gentility" and the level of the ungloved masses was in an active state of excitement and indignation.
"Who is she, I should like to know ?" said Mrs.Saymore, the tailor's wife.

"There was plenty of folks in Rockland as good as ever Sally Jordan was, if she had managed to pick up a merchant.

Other folks could have married merchants, if their families was n't as wealthy as them old skinflints that willed her their money," etc., etc.