Choose the word which most nearly captures the mood of the quotation.''Thought I heard something,' he said. 'Stop a minute.'We stopped.'Hear anything?' he asked.'No.'We had not gone five paces before he made me stop again.'Jem, are you tryin' to scare me? You know I'm too old --''Be quiet,' he said, and I knew he was not joking.'-- From Harper Lee's novel, To Kill a Mockingbird

Mood is another word for the atmosphere of a play, poem, short story, or novel. Authors use character descriptions, setting and dialog to create mood. Although sometimes the atmosphere created at the beginning of a story remains until the end, it often changes at some point in the text. A good example is the play, An Inspector Calls, in which the mood changes drastically during the first act.