Near the start of Chap­ter 9:

They were in a small vestibule, with doors open­ing to the right and left. The beam­ing Mrs. Bren­nan went to the right, and fol­low­ing her with her eye, [Laura] caught a glimpse of a com­mit­tee room dec­o­rated in the mod­ern style and fur­nished with a long table and many chairs, and beyond it a swing­ing door lead­ing to a kitchen, into which the old lady van­ished. Eng­lish led Laura to the left, and together they walked into a sun­lit, old-fashioned library which might have been trans­ported detail by detail from a cin­ema set­ting for a story of rich Tories in the Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion. It was, in fact, a replica of one of the repli­cas in the Williams­burg restora­tion of colo­nial homes; the wraith of a wraith, its qual­ity of other-worldliness height­ened by its for­lorn set­ting atop a build­ing full of fear­fully New things. A real fire burned in a real stone chim­ney, and a wisp of real smoke even brought a sting to the eyes, due to a really faulty draft.

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Tags: Aurora Dawn, Herman Wouk, satire, setting description