Critical Reading
The questions below are based on the following selection.
The following selection is taken from Margaret Drabble's story “A Voyage to Cythera.” Cythera is a Greek island near which the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite, was said to have risen from the sea. In this story, the main character, Helen, is asked by a man on a train to mail a letter. Helen becomes intrigued by the idea of the woman to whom the letter was sent, so she sets out to find the woman's home and catch a glimpse of her. In this excerpt, she is standing outside the woman's window.
But there was no need to knock at the door. Victoria Place, when she reached it, was a short main street of tall terraced houses, either newly recovered or so smart that they had never lapsed: the number 24 was brightly illuminated, shining brightly forth into the gathering darkness. She walked slowly toward it, realizing that she would be able to see whatever there was to see without knocking: realizing that fate had connived with her curiosity by providing a bus stop directly outside the house, so that she could stand there and wait without fear of detection. She took her place at the bus stop, and stood there for a moment before she gathered her courage to turn around, and then she turned. The lights were on in the two lower floors, and she could see straight into the basement, a room which most closely resembled in shape the one where she herself lived. The room seemed at first sight to be full of people, and there was so much activity that it took some time to sort them out. There were two women, and four children; no, five children, for there was a baby sitting in a corner on a blue rug. The larger children were putting up a Christmas tree, and one of the women was laying the table for tea, while the other, her back to the window, one elbow on the mantelpiece, appeared to be reading aloud a passage from a book. It was a large, bright room, with a green carpet, and white walls, and red painted wooden furniture; even the table was painted red. A children's room. It shone, it glittered. A mobile of golden fishes hung from the ceiling, and the carpet was strewn with colored glass and tinsel decorations for the tree.

From details provided in this selection, you might best describe the narrator as
a.
curious and wishful.
c.
insensitive.
b.
bitter and angry.
d.
bored.