Every room on the west front looked
across a lawn to the beginning of the avenue immediately
beyond tall iron palisades and gates.
Having visited many more rooms than could be supposed to be
of any other use than to contribute to the window-tax, and
find employment for housemaids, "Now," said Mrs. Rushworth,
"we are coming to the chapel, which properly we ought
to enter from above, and look down upon; but as we
are quite among friends, I will take you in this way,
if you will excuse me."
They entered. Fanny's imagination had prepared her
for something grander than a mere spacious, oblong room,
fitted up for the purpose of devotion: with nothing more
striking or more solemn than the profusion of mahogany,
and the crimson velvet cushions appearing over the ledge
of the family gallery above. "I am disappointed,"
said she, in a low voice, to Edmund. "This is not
my idea of a chapel. There is nothing awful here,
nothing melancholy, nothing grand. Here are no aisles,
no arches, no inscriptions, no banners. No banners,
cousin, to be 'blown by the night wind of heaven.
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