Trenholme found time to look up from his tiny playmate and steal a glance at her handsome profile as she gazed, with thoughtful, abstracted air, out upon the snow.

"Not a very near connection, Captain Rexford," was his reply; and it was given with that frank smile which always leaped first to his eyes before it showed itself about his mouth.
It would have been impossible for a much closer observer than Captain Rexford to have told on which word of this small sentence the emphasis had been given, or whether the smile meant that Principal Trenholme could have proved his relationship had he chosen, or that he laughed at the notion of there being any relationship at all.

Captain Rexford accordingly interpreted it just as suited his inclination, and mentioned to another neighbour in the course of a week that his friend, the Principal of the College, was a distant relative, by a younger branch probably, of the Trenholmes of--, etc.etc., an item of news of which the whole town took account sooner or later.
To Mrs.Rexford Trenholme was chiefly useful as a person of whom she could ask questions, and she wildly asked his advice on every possible subject.

On account of Captain Rexford's friendly approval, and his value to Mrs.Rexford as a sort of guide to useful knowledge on the subject of Canada in general and Chellaston in particular, Robert Trenholme soon became intimate, in easy Canadian fashion, with the newcomers; that is, with the heads of the household, with the romping children and the pretty babies.

The young girls were not sufficiently forward in social arts to speak much to a visitor, and with Sophia he did not feel at all on a sure footing.
After this little conversation with Captain Rexford about his relatives, and when Sophia had received the other children from the hands of Eliza and repaired with them to the house door, Trenholme also took leave, and rose to accompany her as far as the gate.
Sophia shivered a little when she stepped out upon the narrow wooden gallery in front of the door.
The Rexford house was not situated in the midst of the farm, but between the main road that ran out of the village and the river that here lay for some distance parallel with the road.