Just then another man in weirdly patched blue-jean, who limped in his walk and carried the tray with his left hand, brought in supper. He gazed at Carrie so hard that he spilled some of the contents of the dishes, and, when he went out, she glanced at her husband with a smile.
"I suppose that is another pensioner?" she said.
"No," said Leland. "He earns his pay, and all I did was to make it a little easier for him. He got himself mixed up with a threshing mill at another place a while ago."
"And he naturally came to you?"
Leland's eyes sparkled shrewdly. "Well," he said, "I guess I get my full value out of him. Won't you come to supper?"
Carrie took her place at the head of the table, and found the pork, fried potatoes, apples, flapjacks, and hot corn-cakes much more palatable than she had expected. She also looked very dainty sitting there in the great bare room, and was not displeased when Leland told her so. In fact, the more she saw of him, the more favourably he impressed her, and, though she remembered always that she was a Denham of Barrock-holme, and he a Western farmer of low degree, she did what she could to be gracious to him. It was not until the meal was over that a trace of the bitterness she had felt towards him came back to her.
"I suppose you posted the letter I gave you at Winnipeg?" she said.
Leland showed some little embarrassment. "I did. I was going to talk to you about it in a day or two, because it wouldn't be quite convenient to have Mrs. Heaton out from Chicago just now."
Carrie glanced at him sharply. "You told me I could fill the house with my friends, if I wished."
"I believe I did," said Leland. "Anyway, I meant it. Still, we're not going to worry about that to-night."