For the same reason she
also exchanged her picturesque Norse costume
for that of the people among whom she was
living. She went commonly by the name of
Mrs. Brita, which pronounced in the English
way, sounded very much like Mrs. Bright, and
this at last became the name by which she was
known in the neighborhood.
Thus five years passed; then there was a great
rage for emigrating to the far West, and Brita,
with many others, started for Chicago. There
she arrived in the year 1852, and took up her
lodgings with an Irish widow, who was living
in a little cottage in what was then termed the
outskirts of the city. Those who saw her in
those days, going about the lumber-yards and
doing a man's work, would hardly have recognized
in her the merry Glitter-Brita, who in
times of old trod the spring-dance so gayly in
the well-lighted halls of the Blakstad mansion.
And, indeed, she was sadly changed! Her features
had become sharper, and the firm lines
about her mouth expressed severity, almost
sternness. Her clear blue eyes seemed to have
grown larger, and their glance betrayed secret,
ever-watchful care. Only her yellow hair had
resisted the force of time and sorrow; for it
still fell in rich and wavy folds over a smooth
white forehead. She was, indeed, half ashamed
of it, and often took pains to force it into a
sober, matronly hood. Only at nights, when
she sat alone talking with her boy, she would
allow it to escape from its prison; and he would
laugh and play with it, and in his child's way
even wonder at the contrast between her stern
face and her youthful maidenly tresses.
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