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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Section 1: "Afterward".

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Why does Mary have a hard time seeing the details of the man's appearance on that day in October?
(a) Her eyesight is not very good.
(b) The man is deliberately keeping himself in the shadows.
(c) The sun is behind the man.
(d) Ned quickly moves to block her view.

2. Ned asks Alida a question about the ghost's "signalement" (84). What is he asking about?
(a) Its movements and habits.
(b) Its physical description.
(c) Its motivations.
(d) Its background.

3. When Ned speeds off to talk with the mysterious visitor on that day in October, why does it take Mary so long to follow?
(a) She is dizzy and has to move carefully.
(b) Ned tells her not to follow him.
(c) One of the heels of her shoes has come loose.
(d) She is too frightened of the ghost to move, at first.

4. In section "II," what question does Mary repeatedly ask Ned that evening in the library?
(a) She asks whether he is having an affair.
(b) She asks him what secret he is keeping from her.
(c) She asks whether it was a good idea to move into this particular house.
(d) She asks whether he has given up trying to see the ghost.

5. What is Ned's joking theory about why the ghost is so hard to see?
(a) It will not see you without an appointment.
(b) It has too much competition from other "ghostly" things.
(c) It is shy.
(d) The house is deliberately keeping them from seeing its ghost.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why are Ned and Mary so interested in living in an isolated location?

2. When they are all laughing about the idea of a ghost, what does it mean that Mary "noted a certain flatness of tone in Alida's answering hilarity" (83)?

3. Why is the information about Bob Elwell's slow death so significant to Mary?

4. Which character opens the story on page 83 by saying "Oh, there is one, of course, but you'll never know it"?

5. On page 84, the reader learns about the "prodigious windfall" that Ned and Mary experienced. Where did this "prodigious windfall" come from?

(see the answer key)

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