Sentence:  ... it looked like a house where they played <WSD>charades</WSD>, where there would be long streamers of evergreen and dozens of wreaths of holly at Christmas-time, where there were tearful, happy weddings and great throwings of rice after little brides ... 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  A game in which each player acts out a word or phrase, usually based on puns of each syllable and without speaking, for the others to guess.