Of Sophia's step-mother and her numerous children Robert Trenholme knew nothing, save that a second family existed.

Nor did Captain Rexford imagine that his eldest daughter had any distinct remembrance of a man whom she had so casually known.
Fathers are apt to assume that they know the precise extent of their daughters' acquaintanceships, for the same reason that most people assume that what they never heard of does not exist.

Yet when Trenholme actually repaired to the station at the hour at which Captain Rexford had announced his arrival, it was a fact that many of his leisure thoughts for a month back had been pointing forward, like so many guide-posts, to the meeting that was there to take place, and it was also true that the Rexford family--older and younger--were prepared to hail him as a friend, simply because their knowledge of him, though slight, was so much greater than of any other being in the place to which they were come--and everything in this world goes by comparison.
Now the main feature of the arrival of the Rexford family in Chellaston was that they brought their own carriage with them.

It was an old, heavy carriage, for it had come into Captain Rexford's possession in the first place by inheritance, and it was now a great many years since he had possessed horses to draw it.

From its long and ignominious retreat in an outhouse it had lately emerged to be varnished and furbished anew, in order to make the handsomer appearance in the new country.