1. Why is Mrs. Drover in London?
a. to check on the house and make sure the caretaker is doing his job b. to meet her husband and sister
c. to fulfill a promise she had made twenty-five years ago
d. to do some shopping and get some things from the house
2. Which line best expresses Mrs. Drover’s sense of isolation and fear on this particular day?
a. “Though not much dust had seeped in, each object wore a film of another kind…”
b. Indeed, the silence was so intense…that no tread could have gained on hers unheard.”
c. “No other way of having given herself could have made her feel so apart, lost and foresworn.”
d. “She remembered… the complete suspension of her existence during that August week.”
3. What significance do the stained mantelpiece and bruised wallpaper have?
a. They are familiar details that seem somehow strange.
b. They tell of further damage from bombings.
c. They put further burden on Mrs. Drover’s need for repairs. d. They indicate the destructiveness of the Drover children.
4. Which detail from the story helps emphasize the abnormality and ghostliness of the city?
a. Mrs. Drover’s use-and mistrust-of a caretaker
b. The shortness of the taxi line
c. The fact that “no human eye’” watched Mrs. Drover
d. The lack of telephone service
5. Why does a war setting make a ghost story believable?
a. Amid violent fighting, innocent people often get hurt.
b. So many people die that having ghosts as characters seems reasonable.
c. Once the expectation of normality is gone, anything can happen.
d. Deserted houses are appropriate settings for ghosts.
6. Why else might Mrs. Drover have gone to the mirror? Read between the lines and choose the most logical reason.
Mrs. Drover looked for the date: it was today’s. She
dropped the letter onto the bedsprings, then picked it
up to see the writing again--her lips, beneath the
remains of lipstick, beginning to go white. She felt so
much the change in her own face that she went to the
mirror, polished a clear patch in it and looked at once
urgently and stealthily in. She was confronted by a
woman of forty-four, with eyes staring out under a hat
brim that had been rather carelessly pulled down.
a. She needed to see how her face had changed since her former fiancé had seen it.
b. She looked to see if his image would appear.
c. She checked to see if she needed more lipstick.
d. She wanted to make sure the mirror wasn’t damaged.
7. In what way does Mrs. Drover’s response to her reflection in the mirror provide a typical ghost story element?
a. The whiteness of her lips hints at a ghostly element.
b. Her response is very normal, and ghost stories contain “normal” elements.
c. The fact that she has to clear a patch in the mirror suggests mystery. d. Mrs. Drover reveals uncertainty about herself, which can hint at supernatural occurrences.
8. How does Mrs. Drover control her fear?
a. She refuses to acknowledge it.
b. She turns it into anger.
c. She focuses on practical activities.
d. She gives herself a pep talk.
9. What hint of strangeness is there in the farewell scene between Kathleen and her fiancé?
a. Kathleen knows she doesn’t really love him.
b. The scene takes place in secret because Kathleen’s family disapproves. c. The only thing she can recall are the buttons on his uniform. d. The fiancé’s face is not visible and makes her feel as if she has never seen his face.
