Masters of the Wheat-Lands by Harold Bindloss

There was a sharp frost outside, and the prairie was white with a thin sprinkle of snow, when a little party sat down to supper in the Hastings homestead, one Saturday evening. Hastings sat at the head of the table, Mrs. Hastings at the foot with her little daughters, and Agatha, Sproatly, and Winifred between them. Sproatly and Winifred had just driven over from the railroad settlement, as they did now and then, and that was why the meal, which was usually served early in the evening, had been delayed an hour or so. The two hired men, whom Mrs. Hastings had not kept waiting, had gone out to some task in the barn or stables.

Sproatly took a bundle of papers out of his pocket and laid them on the table. There had been a remarkable change in his appearance, for he now wore store clothes, and the skin coat he had taken off when he came in was a new one. It occurred to Mrs. Hastings that there was a certain significance in this, though Sproatly had changed his occupation some time before, and now drove about the prairie as an agent for certain makers of agricultural implements.