Hi! Today there is a
description of a room. Please pay attention to the bold words and look up the
dictionary for them.
The red-room was a square chamber,
very seldom slept in, I might say
never, indeed, unless when a chance
influx of visitors at Gateshead Hall rendered it necessary to turn to account
all the accommodation it
contained: yet it was one of the
largest and stateliest chambers in
the mansion. A bed supported on massive
pillars of mahogany, hung with
curtains of deep red damask, stood out
like a tabernacle in the centre; the
two large windows, with their blinds always drawn down, were half shrouded in festoons and falls of similar drapery; the carpet was red; the table
at the foot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth; the walls were a soft fawn colour with a blush of pink in it; the wardrobe, the toilet-table, the chairs
were of darkly polished old mahogany.
Out of these deep surrounding shades rose high, and glared white, the
piled-up mattresses and pillows of the bed, spread with a snowy Marseilles counterpane. Scarcely less prominent was an ample cushioned easy-chair near the
head of the bed, also white, with a footstool before it; and looking, as I
thought, like a pale throne.
This room was chill, because it
seldom had a fire; it was silent, because remote from the nursery and kitchen;
solemn, because it was known to be so seldom entered. The house-maid alone came here on Saturdays,
to wipe from the mirrors and the furniture a week's quiet dust: and Mrs. Reed
herself, at far intervals, visited it to review the contents of a certain
secret drawer in the wardrobe, where were stored divers parchments, her jewel-casket, and a miniature of her
deceased husband; and in those last words lies the secret of the red-room--the
spell which kept it so lonely in spite of its grandeur. (Jane Eyre: An
Autobiography by Charlotte Bronte)
