“I say, ma,” Jonas observed on one occasion, “you've improved ever so much since you came here. You're a good deal better natured than you were.”
Mrs. Brent smiled, but she did not care to take her son into her confidence.
“Here I have no cares to trouble me,” she said. “I live here in a way that suits me.”
But when they were about starting for Chicago, Mrs. Brent felt herself becoming unaccountably depressed.
“Jonas,” she said, “I am sorry we are going to Chicago.”
“Why, ma? We'll have a splendid time.”
“I feel as if some misfortune were impending over us,” said his mother, and she shivered apprehensively.
But it was too late to recede. Besides, Jonas wished to go, and she had no good reason to allege for breaking the arrangement.