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V O L U M E 1
Dr. Rajiv Vijay

Objective Biology for
Medical Entrance
Examinations: Vol I
Dr Rajiv Vijay
MBBS,
Government Medical College, Kota
Copyright © 2015 Pearson India Education Services Pvt. Ltd
Published by Pearson India Education Services Pvt. Ltd, CIN: U72200TN2005PTC057128, formerly
known as TutorVista Global Pvt. Ltd, licensee of Pearson Education in South Asia
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Contents
Preface v
Acknowledgment vi
About the Author vii
Unit I: Diversity in the Living World 1
1. Living World 3
2. Biological Classification 12
3. Plant Kingdom 25
4. Animal Classification 43
Unit II: Structural Organization in Plants
and Animals 63
5. Plant Morphology 65
6. Anatomy of Flowering Plants 78
7. Structural Organization in Animal 93
Unit III: Cell: Structures and Functions 101
8. Cell: The Unit of Life 103
9. Biomolecules 118
10. Cell Cycle and Cell Division 133
Unit IV: Plant Physiology 145
11. Transport in Plant 147
12. Mineral Nutrition 162
13. Photosynthesis 171
14. Respiration in Plant 185
15. Plant Growth and Development 195
Unit V: Human Physiology 209
16. Digestion and Absorption 211
17. Breathing and Exchange of Gases 224
18. Circulatory System 237
19. Excretory Products and Their Elimination 253
20. Locomotion and Movement 272
21. Neural Control and Co-ordination 286
22. Chemical Co-ordination and Integration 300
This page is intentionally left blank.
Preface
This book is a complete package of questionnaire for the students who desire to get into medicine.
The content of this book will familiarize the students with the latest trends of question and theory
asked in the examination. The book closely adheres to the NCERT syllabus for PMT and questions
have been framed as per the latest question papers of AIPMT, AIIMS and other prestigious pre-
medical entrance examinations.
As an experienced teacher I would suggest that before starting any chapter of this book, a student
should minutely scan the theory and diagrams of the NCERT Textbook and minimum three reading
of its chapters is a must. In my opinion, the book will prove to be an asset and will serve to fulfill the
requirement of the medical aspirants.
Dr Rajiv Vijay
Acknowledgment
This book is a result of the enormous effort and support given by my team members who were
always ready to support my needs. I believe that the blessings of my parents (Late Gopallal Vijay and
Late Suryakanta Vijay) and grandparents have played a prime role in making me more focused and
determinant towards my goal. My wife Shubha Vijay and brother Jeetu Vijay and all other family
members inspired me throughout the preparation of this book.
My sincere thanks to the team of Pearson Education for providing me the platform to serve stu-
dents and I appreciate their efforts in bringing out this book in such an excellent manner.
Careful attempts have been made in making the book error free; however, errors can always creep
in. Suggestions, queries, criticism will always be welcomed from one and all to improve the quality
of this book.
About the Author
Dr Rajiv Vijay has done his MBBS through PMT in 1997. After completing MBBS in 2003 from
Government Medical College, Kota, he established Medical and Engineering Entrance Coaching
Institute in Vadodara (Gujarat) which is today known as RJ VISION Pvt. Ltd. In his career of 14
years, he has taught a lot of students and most of them are extremely successful in various reputed
pre-medical entrance examinations. In 2011, he was selected as the head of the pre-medical division
of Resonance, Kota. As the head of pre-medical division and HOD of biology he nurtured, devel-
oped, installed and supervised the pre-medical division at Kota and all centers across India.
UNIT I
DIVERSITY IN THE LIVING WORLD
Unit I is one of the most important units from the examples point of view. As this unit contains animal
and plant classifications which require some extra input, so prepare these two chapters in some more
detail. Do not deviate so much from textbook. By solving questions you can learn all the examples.
Also nowadays, a question may be asked from Chapter 1, i.e. ‘Living World’. Since all diagrams are
important, you need to analyze each diagram because questions can be asked in any format. Unit I
contributes 8–10 questions in AIPMT. Employ the process of mnemonic to increase the efficiency
of memory. To elaborate, for examples coming under Echinodermates given in textbook, you can
employ the following:
[A, B, C, D, E: A for Asterias (star fish) B for Brittle star (ohpiura) C for Cucumaria (sea cucumber)
D for anteDon(sea lily) and E for Echinus (sea urchin)].
CHAPTER 1
Living World
1. Who is known as ‘the Darwin of the 20th century’?

(a) Lamarck (b) Ernst Mayr
(c) Carolus Linneaus (d) Robert May
2. The number of species that are known and described range between
(a) 1.3–1.4 million (b) 1.4–1.5 million
(c) 1.7–1.8 million (d) 1.9–2.2 million
3. Twin characteristics of growth are
(a) increase in mass (b) increase in number
(c) both of the above (d) none of the above
4. Growth in living organism
(a) is from outside (b) is from inside
(c) both (a) and (b) (d) does not take place
5. Which of the following does not grow?
(a) Amoeba (b) Yeast (c) Dead body (d) Planaria
6. Growth cannot be taken as a defining property of living organisms because
(a) all living organism do not show growth
(b) non-living thing also grow from inside
(c) non-living things also grow
(d) some living organism not showing process of reproduction
7. Select the total number from the following organism that multiply by budding
(a) 2 (b) 3 (c) 4 (d) 5
8. For which organism, growth is synonymous with reproduction?
(a) Unicellular algae (b) Amoeba (c) Bacteria (d) All
9. Which of the following multiply through fragmentation?
(a) Fungi (b) Filamentous algae (c) Planaria (d) All of these
10. Mark the correct statement.
(a) The growth in living organisms is from inside
(b) Plants grow only up to a certain age
(c) Only living organisms grow
(d) All of these
11. The growth and reproduction are mutually exclusive events in
(a) plants only (b) animals only
(c) higher animal and plants (d) lower organisms
4 Living World
12. Reproduction cannot be an all-inclusive defining characteristic of living organisms because

(a) all living organism do not show growth
(b) many organism do not reproduce
(c) non-living things show reproduction
(d) all living organism show small period of reproductive phase in their life
13. Living organism shows
(a) self-replication (b) evolution
(c) self-regulation and response to external stimuli (d) all
14. The sum total of chemical reactions occurring in our body is called
(a) metabolism (b) homeostasis (c) catabolism (d) anabolism
15. Select the incorrect statement from the following
(A) NBRI is situated at Lucknow.
(B) Plant families like Convolvulaceae and Solanaceae are included in the order polymoniales
mainly based on the floral characters.
(C) All living organisms – present, past and future, are linked to one another by the sharing of
the common genetic material but to varying degree.
(D) Order Solanum, Datura and Petunia are placed in family Solanaceae.
(a) A only (b) B and D only
(c) D only (d) B and C only
16. Which of the following statement is incorrect?
(a) All plants, animals, fungi and microbes exhibit metabolism
(b) Interactions among the molecular components of the organelles result into the properties
of cell organelles
(c) Properties of cellular organelles are present in the molecular constituents of the organelles
(d) Celluar organisation of the body is the defining feature of life forms
17. Properties of organs are
(a) present in the constituent cells
(b) due to different cells in them
(c) due to their similar origin
(d) a result of interactions among the constituent tissues
18. Which two points are known as the twin characteristics of growth?
(1) Increase in mass (2) Metabolism
(3) Increase in number of individuals (4) Sense of environment
(a) (1) and (2) (b) (1) and (4) (c) (2) and (3) (d) (1) and (3)
19. Cell division occurs _________ in plants and _________ in animals
(a) Continuously, only up to a certain age
(b) Only up to a certain age, continuously
(c) Continuously, never
(d) Continuously, continuously
20. Which of the following matching is incorrect?
Common name Genus Order Class
(a) Man Homo Primata Mammalia
(b) Mango Mangifera Sapindales Dicotyledonae
(c) Housefly Musca Coelopetra Insecta
(d) Wheat Tritium Poales Monocotyledonae
Living World 5
21. Which set of organisms multiply through fragmentation?

(a) Planaria, hydra, yeast
(b) Echinoderms, fungi, bacteria
(c) Fungi, filamentous algae, protonema of mosses
(d) Amoeba, hydra, virus
22. Which of the following organism does not reproduce?
(a) Mules (b) Sterile worker bees
(c) Sterile human couple (d) All
23. Which one of the following aspects is an exclusive characteristic of living things?
(a) Isolated metabolic reactions occur in vitro
(b) Increase in mass from inside only
(c) Perception of events happening in the environment and their memory
(d) Increase in mass by accumulation of material both on surface as well as internally
24. Which of the following is self-conscious?
(a) Human being (b) Tiger (c) Lion (d) Frog
25. Metabolic reactions take place
(a) Invitro (b) Invivo
(c) both (a) and (b) (d) only in unicellular organisms
26. Organisms that can sense and respond to environmental cues
(a) eukaryotes only
(b) prokaryotes only
(c) both (a) and (b)
(d) those with a well-developed neuroendocrine system
27. Growth, development and functioning of living body is due to
(a) a decrease in entropy (b) an increase in Gibbs free energy
(c) metabolism (d) adaptations
28. A living organism can be exceptionally differentiated from a non-living thing on the basis of
its ability for
(a) reproduction and excretion
(b) growth and movement
(c) responsiveness to touch and temperature
(d) interaction with environment and progressive evolution
29. Two components of binomial nomenclature are
(a) generic name (b) specific epithet (c) both (a) and (b) (d) subspecies
30. In Mangifera indica Linn, Linn stands for
(a) Latin (b) lower organism (c) Linnaeus (d) Lamarck
31. Alsatian is a breed of
(a) dog (b) cat (c) cow (d) horse
32. Modern taxonomy studies require
(a) knowledge of external and internal structure
(b) knowledge of structure of cell
(c) knowledge development process and ecological information of organisms
(d) all
33. Which of the following term include all other terms?
(a) Classification (b) Nomenclature (c) Taxonomy (d) Systematics
6 Living World
34. Linnaeus evolved a system of nomenclature called

(a) trinomial (b) vernacular (c) binomial (d) polynomial
35. Binomial nomenclature seems to be difficult because a scientific name is derived from
(a) Hindi (b) Sanskrit (c) Latin (d) Arabic
36. A group of plants or animals with similar traits of any rank is
(a) species (b) order (c) genus (d) taxon
37. Binomial nomenclature means
(a) two names: one given by zoologist, other by botanist
(b) one scientific name consisting of a generic name and a specific epithet
(c) two names: one latinized, other french
(d) two names: one scientific, other local
38. Basic unit of taxonomic hierarchy is
(a) species (b) kingdom (c) class (d) phylum
39. Botanical name of mango is
(a) Mangifera indica (b) Solanum tuberosum
(c) Solanum melongena (d) Panthera leo
40. Botanical name of potato is
41. Zoological name of lion is
42. The branch connected with characterization, nomenclature, identification and classification is
(a) ecology (b) taxonomy (c) morphology (d) eugenics
43. The third name in trinomial nomenclature is
(a) species (b) subgenus (c) subspecies (d) holotype
44. In binomial nomenclature
(a) both genus and species are printed in italics
(b) genus and species may be of same name
(c) both the initial letters in genus and species is capital
(d) genus is written after the species
45. As we go higher from species to kingdom, the number of common characterstic goes on _______.
(a) increasing (b) decreasing (c) remains same (d) none of the above
46. The binomial nomenclature was given by
(a) Lamarck (b) Ernst Mayr (c) Carolus Linnaeus (d) Darwin
47. The term ‘taxon’ is used for
(a) the ranks of species and genus (b) the ranks up to phylum
(c) the species epithet only (d) any rank of taxonomic hierarchy
48. The taxonomic aid that provides information for the identification of names of species found
in an area is
(a) monograph (b) manual (c) catalogue (d) periodical
49. The Indian Botanical Garden is located in
(a) Howrah (b) Lucknow (c) Mumbai (d) Mysore
50. The famous botanical garden ‘Kew’ is located in
(a) England (b) Lucknow (c) America (d) Australia
Living World 7
51. Identify the correct sequence of taxonomic categories.

(a) Species–order–kingdom–phylum (b) Species–family–genus–class
(c) Genus–species–order–phylum (d) Species–genus–order-phylum
52. Which biological name is wrongly written?
(a) Apis indica (b) Triticum aestivum
(c) Felis domesticus (d) Mangifera Indica
53. Descending arrangement of categories is called
(a) classification (b) taxonomy (c) hierarchy (d) key
54. Petunia is
(a) variety (b) subspecies (c) species (d) genus
55. Which one of the following is not a category?
(a) Species (b) Class (c) Phylum (d) Convolvulaceae
56. In hierarchy of classification, order is present between
(a) family and genus (b) phylum and kingdom
(c) family and class (d) family and species
57. Select the incorrect statement from the following
(a) Each statement in key is called lead
(b) Taxonomic keys are tools that help in identification based on characterstics
(c) ICZN stands for International Code of Zoological Nomenclature
(d) Ernst Mayr used system a Nature as the title of his publication
58. Place where we store dry plants for information purpose is called
(a) key (b) museum (c) monograph (d) herbarium
59. Which is not a part of taxonomic hierarchy?
(a) Genus and species (b) Order and class
(c) Kingdom and class (d) Catalogue and herbarium
60. Find out the incorrect statement from the following:
(a) Closely-related species differ in morphological features
(b) Genus comprises a group of related species
(c) Taxonomic studies are useful in agricultural, forestry and industries
(d) Notochord and ventral hollow neural system are common features of phylum chordata
61. ICBN is
(a) International Code for Biosphere Nomenclature
(b) International Code for Botanical Nomenclature
(c) International Class for Biological Nobel leurette
(d) International Committe for Biological Naming
62. Zoological name of tiger is
(c) Solanum melongena (d) Panthera tigris
63. Zoological name of leopard is
(c) Solanum melongena (d) Panthera pardus
64. Zoological name of house fly is
(c) Solanum melongena (d) Musca domestica
8 Living World
65. Zoological name of man is

(c) Solanum melongena (d) Homo sapiens
66. Botanical name of wheat is
(c) Solanum melongena (d) Triticum aestivum
67. Zoological name of cat is
(c) Solanum melongena (d) Felis domesticus
68. Botanical name of makoi is
(c) Solanum melongena (d) Solanum nigrum
69. Potato and brinjal belongs to genus
(a) Mangifera (b) Solanum (c) Allium (d) Brassica
70. Genera Petunia and Datura belongs to family
(a) Solanaceae (b) Fabaceae (c) Liliaceae (d) any of the above
71. Select the total number of family from the following:
Felis, Felidae, Solanaceae, Liliaceae, Canidae, Hominidae, Poaceae, Muscidae, Insecta,
Convolvulaceae,
(a) 5 (b) 6 (c) 7 (d) 8
72. Family Solanaceae and Convolvulaceae belongs to order
(a) Poales (b) Polymoniales (c) Diptera (d) Dicot
73. Common features of Chordata are
(a) presence of notochord in any stage of life
(b) dorsal hollow neural system
(c) paired pharyngeal gill slits
(d) all
74. Which of the following is a common feature of category ‘insecta’?
(a) Presence of ostium
(b) Presence of coxal gland for excretion
(c) Three pair of jointed legs in thoracic region
(d) Exoskeleton of cutin
75. Which of the following represent the family of mango?
(a) Sapindales (b) Anacardiaceae (c) Poales (d) Poaceae
76. House fly belongs to order
(a) Diptera (b) Carnivora (c) Primata (d) Insecta
77. Which is not required for preservation of insect?
(a) Collecting (b) Killing (c) Pinning (d) Pressing
78. IBG is situated at
(a) Kew (b) Howrah (c) Lucknow (d) Jodhpur
79. A museum has a collection of
(a) preserved plants (b) preserved animals
(c) skeleton of animals (d) all
80. Which of the following animals usually stuffed and preserved?
(a) Large birds (b) Mammals (c) Small lizards (d) Both (a) and (b)
Living World 9
81. Zoological parks are places for

(a) wild animals (b) pet animals (c) wild plants (d) endangered crops
82. Zoological park is a place where
(a) wild animals are kept in protected environment under human care
(b) we can learn about wild animal’s food habit
(c) we can learn about wild animal’s behavior
(d) all
83. The keys are based on contrasting characters generally in pairs called
(a) duplex (b) couplet (c) dimer (d) all
84. Which of the following is incorrect about keys?
(a) Key is taxonomical aid used for identification of plants and animals based on the
similarities and dissimilarities
(b) Separate taxonomic keys are required for each taxonomic category such as family,
genusand species for identification purposes
(c) Keys are generally analytical in nature
(d) Key is another taxonomical aid used for nomenclature of plants and animals based on the
similarities and dissimilarities
85. Which of the following is a mean of recording description?
(a) Flora and manuals (b) Monographs
(c) Catalogues (d) All
86. Flora contains information about habitat and distribution of
(a) Animals of a given area (b) Plants of a given area
(c) Some useful plants of a given area (d) Some useful animals of a given area
87. Monographs contains information of
(a) genus (b) species (c) family (d) any one taxon
88. Manuals contain information for
(a) habitat and distribution of animals of a given area
(b) habitat and distribution of plants of a given area
(c) identification of names of species found in an area
(d) habitat and distribution of some useful animals a given area
89. Organisms vary in
(a) size and colour (b) habitat
(c) physiological and morphological features (d) all
90. Live specimens of organisms are found in
(a) herbaria (b) museum
(c) zoological parks and botanical gardens (d) all
91. The name of a plant written on herbarium sheet is its
(a) English name (b) local name (c) botanical name (d) all
92. NBRI is situated in
(a) Kolkata (b) Lucknow (c) Delhi (d) Jodhpur
93. Which is the prime source of taxonomical studies?
(a) Collection of actual specimen (b) Nomenclature
(c) Characterization (d) Identification
10 Living World
94. Tiger, dog and cat are placed in order of

(a) insectivora (b) carnivora (c) primata (d) lagomorpha
95. Monkey, gorilla and gibbons belongs to which of the following order and class respectively
(a) primata and prototheria (b) primata and mammalia
(c) carnivora and eutheria (d) Carnivora and mammalia
96. In plants, families are characterized on the basis of
(a) vegetative structures (b) reproductive features
(c) both (d) none
97. Match the column:
Column I Column II
A. Man 1. Order–Carnivora
B. Mango 2. Family–Poaceae
C. House fly 3. Genus–Musca
D. Tiger 4. Phylum–Chordata
E. Wheat 5. Family–Anacardiaceae
(a) A–1, B–5, C–3, D–4, E–2 (b) A–4, B–5, C–3, D–1 and 4, E–2
(c) A–4, B–2, C–3, D–1, E–5 (d) A–1, B–2, C–3, D–4, E–5
98. Select the incorrect combination:
(a) Fragmentation Fungi, Planaria, Protonema of moss
(b) Budding Yeast, hydra and sponges
(c) Order Mammalia, primata, diptera, poales,
polymoniales, sapindales
(d) Genus Homo, Triticum, Musca, Felis, Panthera, Datura,
Petunia, Mangifera, Solanum
99. Select the correct combination:
(a) Earliest classification based on – Uses of various organisms
(b) Reproduction is synonymous with growth – Primitive multicellular organism
(c) ICZN – International Code of Zoo Nomenclature
(d) NBRI – National Botanical Registered Institute
100. Single-horned Rhinoes are found in
(a) Ghana (b) Bastar of Madhya Pradesh
(c) Kaziranga National Park (d) Khasi in Meghalaya
101. Herbarium sheet provides information of
(a) collector’s name (b) family of plant
(c) local, English and botanical name (d) all of the above
102. Select total number of correct statements from the following:
1. Photoperiod affects reproduction in seasonal breeders, both plants and animals
2. All organisms handle chemicals entering their bodies.
3. Metabolism is a characterstic feature of all living organisms.
4. In animals, growth is seen only up to a certain age.
5. Non-living object exhibits metabolism.
6. No non-living object is capable of reproducing or replicating by itself
(a) 2 (b) 3 (c) 4 (d) 6
103. All plants, animals, fungi and microbes exhibit
(a) reproduction (b) growth by increase in mass only
(c) metabolism (d) self consciousness
Living World 11
Answer Keys
1. (b) 2. (c) 3. (c) 4. (b) 5. (c) 6. (c) 7. (b) 8. (d) 9. (d) 10. (a)
11. (c) 12. (b) 13. (d) 14. (a) 15. (c) 16. (c) 17. (d) 18. (d) 19. (a) 20. (c)
21. (c) 22. (d) 23. (b) 24. (a) 25. (c) 26. (c) 27. (c) 28. (d) 29. (c) 30. (c)
31. (a) 32. (d) 33. (d) 34. (c) 35. (c) 36. (d) 37. (b) 38. (a) 39. (a) 40. (b)
41. (d) 42. (b) 43. (c) 44. (a) 45. (d) 46. (c) 47. (d) 48. (b) 49. (a) 50. (a)
51. (d) 52. (d) 53. (c) 54. (d) 55. (d) 56. (c) 57. (d) 58. (d) 59. (d) 60. (d)
61. (b) 62. (d) 63. (d) 64. (d) 65. (d) 66. (d) 67. (d) 68. (d) 69. (b) 70. (a)
71. (d) 72. (b) 73. (d) 74. (c) 75. (b) 76. (a) 77. (d) 78. (b) 79. (d) 80. (d)
81. (a) 82. (d) 83. (b) 84. (d) 85. (d) 86. (b) 87. (d) 88. (c) 89. (d) 90. (c)
91. (d) 92. (b) 93. (a) 94. (b) 95. (b) 96. (c) 97. (b) 98. (c) 99. (a) 100. (c)
101. (d) 102. (c) 103. (c)
CHAPTER 2
Biological Classification
1. Who was the first to attempt a more scientific basis of classification?

(a) Linnaeus (b) Aristotle
(c) Whittaker (d) Bentham and Hooker
2. Aristotle classified plants in herbs, shrubs and trees on the basis of
(a) anatomical feature (b) morphological characters
(c) physiological characters (d) biochemical characters
3. In how many groups Aristotle divided animals on the basis of presence/absence of RBC?
(a) 1 (b) 2 (c) 3 (d) 4
4. Two kingdom classification does not distinguish between
(a) eukaryote and prokaryote
(b) unicellular and multi cellular organism
(c) photosynthetic (green algae) and non-photosynthetic (fungi) organism
(d) all
5. In which year Whittaker proposed five kingdom classification?
(a) 1960 (b) 1959 (c) 1969 (d) 1979
6. Whittaker’s kingdom are
(a) Plantae and Animalia (b) Monera and Protista
(c) Fungi (d) All
7. How many main criteria were used by Whittaker for classification?
(a) 1 (b) 3 (c) 4 (d) 5
8. What is the criteria used by Whittaker for classification?
(1). Cell structure (2). Thallus organization
(3). Mode of nutrition (4). Reproduction
(5). Phylogenetic relationship (6). Biochemical difference
(7). Physiological character
(a) All except (5) and (6) (b) All except (5) and (7)
(c) All except (6) and (7) (d) All except (3) and (4)
9. In earlier classification (like two kingdoms), the following are included in plant
(1). Bacteria, blue green algae, fungus (2). Mosses and fern
(3). Gymnosperms and angiosperm
(a) (1) only (b) (2) and (3) only (c) (3) only (d) all
10. What is common to bacteria, mosses and fungus?
(a) It is mode of nutrition (b) Presence of cell wall
(c) Autotrophic (d) Body organization
11. All prokaryotic groups are put under ———— kingdom
(a) monera (b) plantae (c) fungi (d) protista
Biological Classification 13
12. Kingdom protista contain

(a) blue green algae (b) fungi
(c) unicellular eukaryotes (d) all
13. Chlamydomonas, chlorella, paramecium and amoeba are placed in which kingdom of
Whittaker’s classification?
(a) Monera (b) Plantae (c) Fungi (d) Protista
14. Phylogeny refers to
(a) morphology (b) physiology
(c) reproduction (d) evolutionary relationship
15. Kingdom monera contain
(a) bacteria (b) dianoflagellate
(c) slime moulds (d) euglenoid
16. Most abundant micro organism are
(a) bacteria (b) virus (c) amoeba (d) paramecium
17. Which of the following is incorrect about bacteria?
(A) It is grouped under five categories on the basis of shape
(B) It can live in hot spring, deep ocean, snow and desert
(C) It can live as parasite
(D) It is composed of simple behavior and complex structure
(a) A and B only (b) A and D only (c) B and C only (d) C and D only
18. Most extensive metabolic diversity found in
(a) protozoans (b) amphibian (c) bacteria (d) fungi
19. Most of the bacteria are
(a) chemo-autotrophs (b) photo-autotrophs (c) heterotroph (d) holozoic
20. Match the column:
Column I Column II
A. Salty area 1. Thermoacidophil
B. Hot spring 2. Methanogen
C. Marshy area 3. Halophiles
(a) A‒3, B‒1, C‒2 (b) A‒1, B‒2, C‒3
(c) A‒2, B‒1, C‒3 (d) A‒2, B‒3, C‒1
21. Archaebacteria can live in some of the most harsh habitats because of
(a) presence of mesosome (b) high power of multiplication
(c) special cell wall structure (d) all of the above
22. Following are present in gut of cows and buffaloes and responsible for production of methane
from dung of these animals
(a) Methanogen (b) Thermoacidophiles
(c) Halophils (d) All
23. Motile bacteria possess
(a) cilia (b) flagella (c) both (d) none
24. Which of the following statements is true about cyanobacteria?
(a) It is found in fresh water only
(b) It may be unicellular, colonial or filamentous
(c) They often form bloom in non-polluted fresh water bodies
(d) Colonies are not surrounded by gelatinous sheath
25. Specialized cell of nostoc and anabaena fix nitrogen are known as
(a) cyst (b) heterocyst (c) oocyts (d) cholecyst
14 Biological Classification
26. Find out the total number of false statements:

A. Cyanobacteria have chlorophyll ‘a’ similar to green plants.
B. Bacteria which oxidizes various inorganic substance such as nitrites and ammonia and
use the released energy for ATP production are chemosynthetic autotrophic bacteria.
C. Heterotrophic bacteria are less in abundance in nature.
D. Majority of heterotrophic bacteria are decomposers.
E. Chemosynthetic autotrophic bacteria play important role in recycling of nutrients like
nitrogen, phosphorus, iron and sulphur.
(a) A (b) B (c) C (d) D
27. Heterotrophic bacteria help in
(a) curding of milk (b) production of antibiotic
(c) nitrogen fixation in leguminous plant (d) all
28. Select the total number of disease from the following caused by bacteria
Mumps, Smallpox, Citrus canker, Cholera, Typhoid, Tetanus, Sleeping sickness, Malaria
(a) 2 (b) 4 (c) 5 (d) 6
29. Which one is correct about reproduction in bacteria?
(a) Mainly by binary fission
(b) Spores are formed under unfavorable condition
(c) Sexual reproduction by transfer of DNA from one to another
(d) All
30. Following features belong to
A. complete lacking of cell wall
B. anaerobic
C. smallest living cell
D. many of them are pathogenic to plant and animals
(a) Chrysophytes (b) Prions (c) Viroids (d) Mycoplasma
31. Which of the following is incorrect about protista?
(a) All are single cell eukaryotes
(b) Some have flagella or cilia
(c) Sexually reproduce by cell fusion and zygote formation
(d) Members of protista are primarily terrestrial
32. Kingdom protista include
(a) chrysophyte (b) dianoflagellate (c) euglenoids (d) all
33. Which kingdom of Whittaker are not well-defined?
(a) monera (b) protista (c) fungi (d) animalia
34. Which of the following is correct about chrysophytes?
I. Found in fresh and marine water. II. Microscopic plankton
III. Cell walls are embedded with CaCO3. IV. Most of them are photosynthetic
(a) I and III only (b) I, III and IV only (c) I, II and IV only (d) I and IV only
35. Chief producers in ocean are
(a) euglenoids (b) dianoflagellate (c) BGA (d) chrysophytes
36. Chrysophytes include
(a) diatoms (b) golden algae (c) desmids (d) all
37. Diatomaceous earth is used in
(a) polishing (b) filteration of oils
(c) filteration of syrups (d) all
38. In _______ cell wall forms two thin overlapping shells which fit together as in a soap box.
(a) dianoflagellates (b) diatoms (c) euglenoids (d) none
39. Mostly marine, photosynthetic and biflagellate organisms are
(a) diatoms (b) desmids (c) dianoflagellates (d) euglenoids
40. Following features belong to
I. Appear yellow, green, brown, blue and red depending on pigment in cell.
II. Stiff cellulose plate forms cell wall.
III. One longitudiual and one transverse flagella present.
IV. Photosynthetic.
(a) diatoms (b) desmids (c) dianoflagellates (d) euglenoids
41. Red tide is because of
(a) desmids (b) gonyaulax (c) euglena (d) red algae
42. Which of the following is true about gonyaulax?
(a) Release toxin (b) Slow multiplication causing red tide
(c) Heterotropic (d) All
43. Habitat of euglenoids is
(a) fresh river water (b) fresh stagnant water
(c) marine water (d) all
44. Mode of nutrition in euglenoids is
(a) autotropic (b) heterotropic (c) symbiotic (d) mixotropic
45. Characteristic feature of euglenoids are
A. Presence of cell wall B. Presence of two flagella
C. Photosynthetic in presence of sunlight D. Presence of pellicle on their cell
(a) A, D only (b) B, D only (c) B, C, D only (d) All
46. Euglenoids have flexible body because of
(a) cellulosic wall (b) protein rich pellicle
(c) lipoic wall (d) pectinic wall
47. Pigments of euglenoids are identical to
(a) bacteria (b) diatoms (c) dianoflagellates (d) higher plants
48. Euglena posses all except
(a) pellicle (b) two equal flagella
(c) two unequal flagella (d) mixotrophic nutrition
49. Character belongs to slime moulds
A. Saprophytes.
B. Forms plasmodium under favorable condition.
C. Spores posses true walls.
D. Spores are dispersed by water.
E. Body moves along decaying twings and leaves engulfing organic matter.
(a) All except E (b) All except D
(c) All except C and E (d) All except B
50. Which protist are believed to be the relatives of animals?
(a) Slime moulds (b) Dianoflagellates (c) Protozoans (d) Diatoms
51. Protozoans are
A. Hetrotrops.
B. Parasites or predators.
C. Protist.
D. Belived to be primitive relative of animals.
(a) A, B only (b) B, C only (c) D, A only (d) All
52. Amoeboid protozoans

(a) live in fresh water, sea water or moist soil
(b) capture prey by putting pseudopodia
(c) marine forms have shells on their surface
(d) all of the above
53. False feet is the characteristic of which protozoan?
(a) Sporozoan (b) Ciliated protozoan
(c) Flagellated protozoan (d) Amoeboid protozoans
54. Sleeping sickness caused by
(a) plasmodium (b) paramoecium (c) trypanosoma (d) entamoeba
55. The protist which possess flagella is
(a) paramoecium (b) plasmodium (c) trypanosoma (d) entamoeba
56. Ciliated protozoan possess
(a) thousands of cilia (b) gullet that opens outsides to cell
(c) coordinated movement of rows of cilia (d) all
57. Sporozoans possesss
(a) spore like stage in life cycle (b) are infectious
(c) are motile (d) both (a) and (b)
58. Select correct statement from the following for kingdom fungi
A. They are hetrotrophic.
B. They show less diversity in morphology and habitat.
C. Yeast is an unicellular fungus.
D. They prefer to grow in warm and humid places.
(a) A and D only (b) C and D only (c) A, C and D only (d) A and B only
59. Following are example of fungus
(a) Toadstool (b) Puccinia (c) Yeast (d) All
60. Following pairs belongs to same kingdom
(a) Mycoplasma and Euglena (b) Golden algae and Green algae
(c) Toadstool and Albugo (d) Lichens and Alternaria
61. Refrigeration prevent food from spoilage by
(a) fungus (b) bacteria (c) both (d) none
62. Which is not a correct matching?
(a) Rust → Puccinia (b) Yeast → Bread and beer
(c) Chrysophyte → Diatomaceous earth (d) Penicillium → Red tide
63. Following features belongs to
A. Body consist of long, slender thread-like structures called hyphae.
B. Cell wall consist of chitin.
C. Cosmopolitan.
(a) ciliated protozoans (b) slime moulds
(c) fungi (d) euglenoids
64. If hyphae are continuous tube filled with multinucleated cytoplasm is known as
(a) septate hyphae (b) coenocytic hyphae
(c) mycelium (d) none
65. Select correct matching:
A. Fungi depend on dead substrate ‒ Saprophytic
B. Fungi depend on living plant and animals ‒ Parasite
C. Fungi as symbiont with algae ‒ Lichens

D. Fungi as symbiont with root of higher plant ‒ Mycorrhazia
(a) A and B only (b) B and C only (c) C and D only (d) All
66. Vegetative reproduction in fungus takes place by
(a) fragmentation (b) fission (c) budding (d) all
67. Asexual reproduction in fungus occurs by spores known as
(a) conidia (b) sporangiospores
(c) zoospores (d) any of the above
68. Sexual reproduction in fungus is by
(a) oospores (b) ascospores
(c) basidiospores (d) any of the above
69. Sexual reproduction in fungus occurs in following sequential event. Arrange them properly.
A. Fusion of two nuclei called karyogamy.
B. Fusion of protoplasm between two motile or non-motile gametes.
C. Meiosis in zygote resulting in haploid spores.
(a) A → B → C (b) B → A → C (c) C → B → A (d) C → A → B
70. Dikaryon and dikaryophase is seen in case of
(a) ascomycetes (b) basidiomycetes (c) phycomycetes (d) both (a) and (b)
71. Kingdom fungi divided into various classes on the basis of
(a) morphology of mycelium (b) mode of spore formation
(c) type of fruiting bodies (d) all
72. During sexual reproduction in fungus
(a) hyphae of same class come together and fuse
(b) hyphae of same genus come together and fuse
(c) hyphae of closely related species come together and fuse
(d) hyphae of compatible mating type come together and fuse
73. Habitats of phycomycetes are
(a) aquatic (b) decaying wood in moist and damp place
(c) obligate parasite in plant (d) all
74. Endogenously produced spores are found in all except
(a) penicillium (b) mucor (c) albugo (d) rhizopus
75. Following features belong to class
A. Asexual reproduction by zoospores or aplanospores.
B. Fusion of gametes may be isogamous, anisogamous or oogamous.
C. Mycelium is aseptate and coenocytic.
D. Spores are endogenously produced in sporangium.
(a) ascomycetes (b) deuteromycetes (c) phycomycetes (d) basidiomycetes
76. Following fungus belongs to class ascomycetes (count total number).
Rhizopus, Penicillium, Yeast, Mucor, Agaricus, Puccinia, Albugo, Claviceps, Neurospora,
Alternaria, Trichoderma, Aspergillus, Ustilago, Morels, Buffles, Colletotrichum,
Toadstool
(a) 5 (b) 7 (c) 9 (d) 10
77. Ascomycetes are mostly
(a) acellular (b) unicellular (c) multicellular (d) all
78. Unicellular ascomycetes is
(a) penicillium (b) alternaria
(c) saccharomyces (yeast) (d) agaricus
79. Following features belongs to class

A. Mycelium branched and septate.
B. Asexual spores conidia produced exogenously.
C. Sexual spores produced endogenously.
D. Many members of this class are edible.
(a) ascomycetes (b) phycomycetes (c) basidiomycetes (d) deuteromycetes
80. Which of the following is extensively used in biochemical and genetic work?
(a) Aspergillus (b) Claviceps (c) Neurospora (d) Penicillium
81. Commonly known form of basidiomycetes are
(a) mushrooms (b) bracket fungi (c) puffballs (d) all
82. Following characteristics are of which of the given fungi?
A. Mycelium branched and Septate.
B. Asexual spores are generally not found.
C. Vegetative reproduction by fragmentation is common.
D. Sex organs are absent but plasmogamy is by fusion of two somatic cells of different
strains or genotype.
(a) phycomycetes (b) basidiomycetes (c) deuteromycetes (d) ascomycetes
83. Karyogamy and meiosis occur in basidium produces ______ basidiospores
(a) 1 (b) 2 (c) 3 (d) 4
84. Basidiospores are produced on basidium
(a) endogenously (b) exogenously (c) both (d) none
85. Find out the correct matching:
(a) Ustilago–Smut (b) Puccinia–Rust
(c) Agaricus–Mushroom (d) All
86. Which of the following fungi only reproduce by asexual spores conidia?
(a) Alternaria (b) Colletotrichum (c) Trichoderma (d) All
87. Deuteromycetes known imperfect fungi because
(a) only sexual phase is found
(b) only asexual or vegetative phase are known
(c) both asexual and sexual phase are known
(d) reproduction in these fungi is absent
88. Many members of _______ class are decomposers of litter and help in mineral cycling.
(a) ascomycetes (b) deuteromycetes (c) basidiomycetes (d) phycomycetes
89. Following features belongs to
A. Mycelium septate and branched.
B. Some members are saprophytes or parasites.
C. Reproduce only by conidia.
(a) ascomycetes (b) deuteromycetes (c) basidiomycetes (d) phycomycetes
90. Following are example of insectivorous plants.
(a) Bladderwort (b) Venus fly trap (c) Cuscuta (d) Both (a) and (b)
91. Kingdom plantae include
(a) algae and bryophytes (b) pteridophytes and gymnosperms
(c) angiosperms (d) all
92. Plant cells have all except
(a) chloroplast (b) cellulosic cell wall
(c) large vacuole (d) centriole
93. Alternation of generation seen in all except

(a) fucus (b) sphagnum (c) equisetum (d) alternaria
94. Life cycle in plant has generally two distinct phase the ______ sporophytic and the ______
gametophytic that alternate with each other. This phenomenon is called as alternation of
generation.
(a) diploid, diploid (b) diploid, haploid
(c) haploid, diploid (d) haploid, haploid
95. Select from the following the total number of features belonging to animal kingdom.
1. Multicellular, heterotrophic. 7. Higher forms shows sensory and
2. Most of them capable of locomotion. neuromotor mechanism.
3. Have definite shape and size. 8. Some members are autotrophic.
4. Digestion of food in internal cavity. 9. Presence of cellulose cell wall.
5. Holozoic mode of nutrition. 10. Sexual reproduction generally by
6. Stored food reserve as glycogen copulation of male and female.
or fat.
(a) 6 (b) 7 (c) 8 (d) 10
96. In five kingdom classification of Whittaker, some acellular organisms are not included, they
are
(a) virus (b) viroids (c) lichens (d) both (a) and (b)
97. Virus is
(a) completely non-living
(b) inert crystalline structure outside the living cell
(c) cellular organism
(d) one of Whittaker’s classification
98. ‘Virus’ name means
(a) venom or poisonous fluid
(b) acellular form
(c) non-cellular form
(d) connecting link between living and non-living
99. ‘Virus’ name was given by
(a) Ivanowsky (b) Pasteur (c) Whittaker (d) Beijerinek
100. Contagium vivum fluidum (infections living fluid) name given to fluid extract from infected
tobacco plant was given by
(a) Ivanowsky (b) Pasteur (c) Whittaker (d) Beijerinek
101. Viruses are
(a) inert outside their specific host cell (b) obligate parasite
(c) passes through bacteria proof filter (d) all above statements are correct
102. Who showed that virus can be crystallized out?
(a) Ivanowsky (b) Beijerinek (c) Stanley (d) Pasteur
103. Virus contains
(a) protein (b) DNA
(d) RNA (d) (a) and either (b) or (c)
104. Viruses infect plants generally have
(a) single standard DNA (b) double standard DNA
(c) double standard RNA (d) single standard RNA
105. Viruses which infect animals have

(a) single standard RNA (b) double standard RNA
(c) double standard DNA (d) any of the above
106. Bacteriophage generally have
(a) single standard RNA (b) double standard RNA
(c) double standard DNA (d) any of the above
107. Capsomeres may be arranged in
(a) helical (b) polyhedral (c) ellipsoid (d) either (a) or (b)
108. In virus infected plants following symptoms can be observed
(a) Mosaic formation and stunted growth (b) Leaf rooling and curling
(c) Yellowing and vein clearing (d) All
109. Select the total number of diseases from the following which can be caused by virus in plant or animals.
Mumps, Small pox, Rust, Smut, Herpes, Influenza, Potato spindle tuber, Red rot of sugar
cane, Turnip mosaic, Black rot crucifier
(a) 4 (b) 5 (c) 7 (d) 8
110. Potato spindle tuber disease is caused by
(a) virus (b) viroids (c) lichens (d) fungi
111. ‘Viroids’ is discovered by
(a) Ivanowsky (b) T.O. Diener (c) Beijerinerk (d) Stanley
112. Viroids are
(a) free protein (b) free RNA (c) free DNA (d) free saccharides
113. The molecular weight of RNA of viroid is
(a) high (b) low
(c) very high (d) any of the above
114. Lichen are symbiotic association between
(a) algae and bacteria (b) bacteria and fungus
(c) algae and fungus (d) fungus and Root of higher plant
115. In lichen algal component is called ______ and fungal component is called ______
(a) mycobiont, phycobiont (b) phycobiont, mycobiont
(c) phycobiont, mycorrhazia (d) mycorrhaiza, mycobiont
116. Which one heterotrophic in lichen?
(a) Fungus (b) Algae (c) Both (d) None
117. Lichens are
(a) pollution indicator
(b) symbiotic association between algae and fungus
(c) pioneer species in primary succession on rocks
(d) all of the above
118. Which of the following is incorrect about lichens?
(a) Algae part is autotrophic (b) Fungus part absorb nutrient and minerals
(c) Fungus provide shelter to algae (d) Algae provide shelter to fungus
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“She didn’t like it.”
“No ... she thought the boys stupid.”
“They’re very much like all boys of their age. It’s not an interesting
time.”
Sybil frowned a little. “Thérèse doesn’t think so. She says all they have
to talk about is their clubs and drinking ... neither subject is of very much
interest.”
“They might have been, if you’d lived here always ... like the other girls.
You and Thérèse see it from the outside.” The girl didn’t answer, and Olivia
asked: “You don’t think I was wrong in sending you to France to school?”
Quickly Sybil looked up. “Oh, no ... no,” she said, and then added with
smoldering eagerness, “I wouldn’t have changed it for anything in the
world.”
“I thought you might enjoy life more if you saw a little more than one
corner of it.... I wanted you to be away from here for a little time.” (She did
not say what she thought—“because I wanted you to escape the blight that
touches everything at Pentlands.”)
“I’m glad,” the girl replied. “I’m glad because it makes everything
different.... I can’t explain it.... Only as if everything had more meaning
than it would have otherwise.”
Suddenly Olivia kissed her daughter and said: “You’re a clever girl;
things aren’t wasted on you. And now go along to bed. I’ll stop in to say
good-night.”
She watched the girl as she moved away through the big empty hall past
the long procession of Pentland family portraits, thinking all the while that
beside them Sybil seemed so fresh and full of warm eager life; and when at
last she turned, she encountered her father-in-law and old Mrs. Soames
moving along the narrow passage that led from the writing-room. It struck
her sharply that the gaunt, handsome old John Pentland seemed really old
to-night, in a way he had never been before, old and a little bent, with
purplish circles under his bright black eyes.
Old Mrs. Soames, with her funny, intricate, dyed-black coiffure and
rouged cheeks and sagging chin supported by a collar of pearls, leaned on
his arm—the wreck of a handsome woman who had fallen back upon such
silly, obvious tricks as rouge and dye—a vain, tragic old woman who never
knew that she was a figure of fun. At sight of her, there rose in Olivia’s
mind a whole vista of memories—assembly after assembly with Mrs.
Soames in stomacher and tiara standing in the reception line bowing and
smirking over rites that had survived in a provincial fashion some darker,
more barbaric, social age.
And the sight of the old man walking gently and slowly, out of deference
to Mrs. Soames’ infirmities, filled Olivia with a sudden desire to weep.
John Pentland said, “I’m going to drive over with Mrs. Soames, Olivia
dear. You can leave the door open for me.” And giving his daughter-in-law
a quick look of affection he led Mrs. Soames away across the terrace to his
motor.
It was only after they had gone that Olivia discovered Sabine standing in
the corridor in her brilliant green dress watching the two old people from
the shadow of one of the deep-set windows. For a moment, absorbed in the
sight of John Pentland helping Mrs. Soames with a grim courtliness into the
motor, neither of them spoke, but as the motor drove away down the long
drive under the moon-silvered elms, Sabine sighed and said, “I can
remember her as a great beauty ... a really great beauty. There aren’t any
more like her, who make their beauty a profession. I used to see her when I
was a little girl. She was beautiful—like Diana in the hunting-field. They’ve
been like that for ... for how long.... It must be forty years, I suppose.”
“I don’t know,” said Olivia quietly. “They’ve been like that ever since I
came to Pentlands.” (And as she spoke she was overcome by a terrible
feeling of sadness, of an abysmal futility. It had come to her more and more
often of late, so often that at times it alarmed her lest she was growing
morbid.)
Sabine was speaking again in her familiar, precise, metallic voice. “I
wonder,” she said, “if there has ever been anything....”
Olivia, divining the rest of the question, answered it quickly, interrupting
the speech. “No ... I’m sure there’s never been anything more than we’ve
seen.... I know him well enough to know that.”
For a long time Sabine remained thoughtful, and at last she said: “No ... I
suppose you’re right. There couldn’t have been anything. He’s the last of
the Puritans.... The others don’t count. They go on pretending, but they
don’t believe any more. They’ve no vitality left. They’re only hypocrites
and shadows.... He’s the last of the royal line.”
She picked up her silver cloak and, flinging it about her fine white
shoulders, said abruptly: “It’s almost morning. I must get some sleep. The
time’s coming when I have to think about such things. We’re not as young
as we once were, Olivia.”
On the moonlit terrace she turned and asked: “Where was O’Hara? I
didn’t see him.”
“No ... he was asked. I think he didn’t come on account of Anson and
Aunt Cassie.”
The only reply made by Sabine was a kind of scornful grunt. She turned
away and entered her motor. The ball was over now and the last guest gone,
and she had missed nothing—Aunt Cassie, nor old John Pentland, nor
O’Hara’s absence, nor even Higgins watching them all in the moonlight
from the shadow of the lilacs.
The night had turned cold as the morning approached and Olivia,
standing in the doorway, shivered a little as she watched Sabine enter her
motor and drive away. Far across the meadows she saw the lights of John
Pentland’s motor racing along the lane on the way to the house of old Mrs.
Soames; she watched them as they swept out of sight behind the birch
thicket and reappeared once more beyond the turnpike, and as she turned
away at last it occurred to her that the life at Pentlands had undergone some
subtle change since the return of Sabine.
CHAPTER II
It was Olivia’s habit (and in some way every small action at Pentlands
came inevitably to be a habit) to go about the house each night before
climbing the paneled stairs, to see that all was in order, and by instinct she
made the little tour as usual after Sabine had disappeared, stopping here and
there to speak to the servants, bidding them to go to bed and clear away in
the morning. On her way she found that the door of the drawing-room,
which had been open all the evening, was now, for some reason, closed.
It was a big square room belonging to the old part of the house that had
been built by the Pentland who made a fortune out of equipping privateers
and practising a sort of piracy upon British merchantmen—a room which in
the passing of years had come to be a museum filled with the relics and
souvenirs of a family which could trace its ancestry back three hundred
years to a small dissenting shopkeeper who had stepped ashore on the bleak
New England coast very soon after Miles Standish and Priscilla Alden. It
was a room much used by all the family and had a worn, pleasant look that
compensated for the monstrous and incongruous collection of pictures and
furniture. There were two or three Sheraton and Heppelwhite chairs and a
handsome old mahogany table, and there were a plush sofa and a vast
rocking-chair of uncertain ancestry, and a hideous bronze lamp that had
been the gift of Mr. Longfellow to old John Pentland’s mother. There were
two execrable water-colors—one of the Tiber and the Castle San Angelo
and one of an Italian village—made by Miss Maria Pentland during a tour
of Italy in 1846, and a stuffed chair with tassels, a gift from old Colonel
Higginson, a frigid steel engraving of the Signing of the Declaration which
hung over the white mantelpiece, and a complete set of Woodrow Wilson’s
History of the United States given by Senator Lodge (whom Aunt Cassie
always referred to as “dear Mr. Lodge”). In this room were collected
mementoes of long visits paid by Mr. Lowell and Mr. Emerson and General
Curtis and other good New Englanders, all souvenirs which Olivia had left
exactly as she found them when she came to the big house as the bride of
Anson Pentland; and to those who knew the room and the family there was
nothing unbeautiful or absurd about it. The effect was historical. On
entering it one almost expected a guide to step forward and say, “Mr.
Longfellow once wrote at this desk,” and, “This was Senator Lodge’s
favorite chair.” Olivia knew each tiny thing in the room with a sharp sense
of intimacy.
She opened the door softly and found that the lights were still burning
and, strangest of all, that her husband was sitting at the old desk surrounded
by the musty books and yellowed letters and papers from which he was
compiling laboriously a book known as “The Pentland Family and the
Massachusetts Bay Colony.” The sight of him surprised her, for it was his
habit to retire punctually at eleven every night, even on such an occasion as
this. He had disappeared hours earlier from the ball, and he still sat here in
his dinner coat, though it was long after midnight.
She had entered the room so softly that he did not hear her and for a
moment she remained silently looking down at him, as if undetermined
whether to speak or to go quietly away. He sat with his back to her so that
the sloping shoulders and the thin, ridged neck and partly bald head stood
outlined against the white of the paneling. Suddenly, as if conscious of
being watched, he turned and looked at her. He was a man of forty-nine
who looked older, with a long horse-face like Aunt Cassie’s—a face that
was handsome in a tired, yellow sort of way—and small, round eyes the
color of pale-blue porcelain. At the sight of Olivia the face took on a
pouting expression of sourness ... a look which she knew well as one that he
wore when he meant to complain of something.
“You are sitting up very late,” she observed quietly, with a deliberate air
of having noticed nothing unusual.
“I was waiting to speak to you. I want to talk with you. Please sit down
for a moment.”
There was an odd sense of strangeness in their manner toward each
other, as if there had never been, even years before when the children were
babies, any great intimacy between them. On his part there was, too, a sort
of stiff and nervous formality, rather quaint and Victorian, and touched by
an odd air of timidity. He was a man who would always do not perhaps the
proper thing, but the thing accepted by his world as “proper.”
It was the first time since morning that the conversation between them
had emerged from the set pattern which it had followed day after day for so
many years. When he said that he wanted to speak to her, it meant usually
that there was some complaint to be made against the servants, more often
than not against Higgins, whom he disliked with an odd, inexplicable
intensity.
Olivia sat down, irritated that he should have chosen this hour when she
was tired, to make some petty comment on the workings of the house. Half
without thinking and half with a sudden warm knowledge that it would
annoy him to see her smoking, she lighted a cigarette; and as she sat there,
waiting until he had blotted with scrupulous care the page on which he had
been writing, she became conscious slowly of a strange, unaccustomed
desire to be disagreeable, to create in some way an excitement that would
shatter for a moment the overwhelming sense of monotony and so relieve
her nerves. She thought, “What has come over me? Am I one of those
women who enjoys working up scenes?”
He rose from his chair and stood, very tall and thin, with drooping
shoulders, looking down at her out of the pale eyes. “It’s about Sybil,” he
said. “I understand that she goes riding every morning with this fellow
O’Hara.”
“That’s true,” replied Olivia quietly. “They go every morning before
breakfast, before the rest of us are out.”
He frowned and assumed almost mechanically a manner of severe
dignity. “And you mean to say that you have known about it all along?”
“They meet down in the meadows by the old gravel-pit because he
doesn’t care to come up to the house.”
“He knows, perhaps, that he wouldn’t be welcome.”
Olivia smiled a little ironically. “I’m sure that’s the reason. That’s why
he didn’t come to-night, though I asked him. You must know, Anson, that I
don’t feel as you do about him.”
“No, I suppose not. You rarely do.”
“There’s no need to be unpleasant,” she said quietly.
“You seem to know a great deal about it.”
“Sybil tells me everything she does. It is much better to have it that way,
I think.”
Watching him, it gave her a faint, warm sense of satisfaction to see that
Anson was annoyed by her calmness, and yet she was a little ashamed, too,
for wanting the excitement of a small scene, just a tiny scene, to make life
seem a little more exciting. He said, “But you know how Aunt Cassie and
my father feel about O’Hara.”
Then, for the first time, Olivia began to see light in the darkness. “Your
father knows all about it, Anson. He has gone with them himself on the red
mare, once or twice.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“Why should I make up such a ridiculous lie? Besides, your father and I
get on very well. You know that.” It was a mild thrust which had its
success, for Anson turned away angrily. She had really said to him, “Your
father comes to me about everything, not to you. He is not the one who
objects or I should have known.” Aloud she said, “Besides, I have seen him
with my own eyes.”
“Then I will take it on my own responsibility. I don’t like it and I want it
stopped.”
At this speech Olivia’s brows arched ever so slightly with a look which
might have been interpreted either as one of surprise or one of mockery or
perhaps a little of both. For a moment she sat quite still, thinking, and at last
she said, “Am I right in supposing that Aunt Cassie is at the bottom of
this?” When he made no reply she continued, “Aunt Cassie must have
gotten up very early to see them off.” Again a silence, and the dark little
devil in Olivia urged her to say, “Or perhaps she got her information from
the servants. She often does, you know.”
Slowly, while she was speaking, her husband’s face had grown more and
more sour. The very color of the skin seemed to have changed so that it
appeared faintly green in the light from the Victorian luster just above his
narrow head.
“Olivia, you have no right to speak of my aunt in that way.”
“We needn’t go into that. I think you know that what I said was the
truth.” And a slow warmth began to steal over her. She was getting beneath
his skin. After all those long years, he was finding that she was not entirely
gentle.
He was exasperated now and astonished. In a more gentle voice he said,
“Olivia, I don’t understand what has come over you lately.”
She found herself thinking, wildly, “Perhaps he is going to soften.
Perhaps there is still a chance of warmth in him. Perhaps even now, after so
long, he is going to be pleasant and kind and perhaps ... perhaps ... more.”
“You’re very queer,” he was saying. “I’m not the only one who finds you
so.”
“No,” said Olivia, a little sadly. “Aunt Cassie does, too. She’s been
telling all the neighborhood that I seem to be unhappy. Perhaps it’s because
I’m a little tired. I’ve not had much rest for a long time now ... from Jack,
from Aunt Cassie, from your father ... and ... from her.” At the last word
she made a curious little half-gesture in the direction of the dark north wing
of the big house.
She watched him, conscious that he was shocked and startled by her
mentioning in a single breath so many things which they never discussed at
Pentlands, things which they buried in silence and tried to destroy by
pretending that they did not exist.
“We ought to speak of those things, sometimes,” she continued sadly.
“Sometimes when we are entirely alone with no one about to hear, when it
doesn’t make any difference. We can’t pretend forever that they don’t
exist.”
For a time he was silent, groping obviously, in a kind of desperation for
something to answer. At last he said feebly, “And yet you sit up all night
playing bridge with Sabine and old Mrs. Soames and Father.”
“That does me good. You must admit that it is a change at least.”
But he only answered, “I don’t understand you,” and began to pace up
and down in agitation while she sat there waiting, actually waiting, for the
thing to work itself up to a climax. She had a sudden feeling of victory, of
intoxication such as she had not known in years, not since she was a young
girl; and at the same time she wanted to laugh, wildly, hysterically, at the
sight of Anson, so tall and thin, prancing up and down.
Opposite her he halted abruptly and said, “And I can see no good in
inviting Mrs. Soames here so often.”
She saw now that the tension, the excitement between them, was greater
even than she had imagined, for Anson had spoken of Mrs. Soames and his
father, a thing which in the family no one ever mentioned. He had done it
quite openly, of his own free will.
“What harm can it do now? What difference can it make?” she asked. “It
is the only pleasure left to the poor battered old thing, and one of the few
left to your father.”
Anson began to mutter in disgust. “It is a silly affair ... two old ... old....”
He did not finish the sentence, for there was only one word that could have
finished it and that was a word which no gentleman and certainly no
Pentland ever used in referring to his own father.
“Perhaps,” said Olivia, “it is a silly affair now.... I’m not so sure that it
always was.”
“What do you mean by that? Do you mean....” Again he fumbled for
words, groping to avoid using the words that clearly came into his mind. It
was strange to see him brought face to face with realities, to see him grow
so helpless and muddled. “Do you mean,” he stammered, “that my father
has ever behaved ...” he choked and then added, “dishonorably.”
“Anson ... I feel strangely like being honest to-night ... just for once ...
just for once.”
“You are succeeding only in being perverse.”
“No ...” and she found herself smiling sadly, “unless you mean that in
this house ... in this room....” She made a gesture which swept within the
circle of her white arm all that collection of Victorian souvenirs, all the
mementoes of a once sturdy and powerful Puritan family, “...in this room to
be truthful and honest is to be perverse.”
He would have interrupted her here, angrily, but she raised her hand and
continued, “No, Anson; I shall tell you honestly what I think ... whether you
want to hear it or not. I don’t hope that it will do any good.... I do not know
whether, as you put it, your father has behaved dishonorably or not. I hope
he has.... I hope he was Mrs. Soames’ lover in the days when love could
have meant something to them.... Yes ... something fleshly is exactly what I
mean.... I think it would have been better. I think they might have been
happy ... really happy for a little time ... not just living in a state of
enchantment when one day is exactly like the next.... I think your father, of
all men, has deserved that happiness....” She sighed and added in a low
voice, “There, now you know!”
For a long time he simply stood staring at the floor with the round, silly
blue eyes which sometimes filled her with terror because they were so like
the eyes of that old woman who never left the dark north wing and was
known in the family simply as she, as if there was very little that was
human left in her. At last he muttered through the drooping mustache, as if
speaking to himself, “I can’t imagine what has happened to you.”
“Nothing,” said Olivia. “Nothing. I am the same as I have always been,
only to-night I have come to the end of saying ‘yes, yes’ to everything, of
always pretending, so that all of us here may go on living undisturbed in our
dream ... believing always that we are superior to every one else on the
earth, that because we are rich we are powerful and righteous, that because
... oh, there is no use in talking.... I am just the same as I have always been,
only to-night I have spoken out. We all live in a dream here ... a dream that
some day will turn sharply into a nightmare. And then what will we do?
What will you do ... and Aunt Cassie and all the rest?”
In her excitement her cheeks grew flushed and she stood up, very tall
and beautiful, leaning against the mantelpiece; but her husband did not
notice her. He appeared to be lost in deep thought, his face contorted with a
kind of grim concentration.
“I know what has happened,” he said presently. “It is Sabine. She should
never have come back here. She was like that always ... stirring up trouble
... even as a little girl. She used to break up our games by saying: ‘I won’t
play house. Who can be so foolish as to pretend muddy water is claret! It’s
a silly game.’ ”
“Do you mean that she is saying it again now ... that it’s a silly game to
pretend muddy water is claret?”
He turned away without answering and began again to pace up and down
over the enormous faded roses of the old Victorian carpet. “I don’t know
what you’re driving at. All I know is that Sabine ... Sabine ... is an evil
woman.”
“Do you hate Sabine because she is a friend of mine?”
She had watched him for so many years disliking the people who were
her friends, managing somehow to get rid of them, to keep her from seeing
them, to force her into those endless dinners at the houses of the safe men
he knew, the men who had gone to his college and belonged to his club, the
men who would never do anything that was unexpected. And in the end she
had always done as he wanted her to do. It was perhaps a manifestation of
his resentment toward all those whom he could not understand and even
(she thought) feared a little—the attitude of a man who will not allow others
to enjoy what he could not take for himself. It was the first time she had
ever spoken of this dog-in-the-manger game, but she found herself unable
to keep silent. It was as if some power outside her had taken possession of
her body. She had a strange sensation of shame at the very moment she
spoke, of shame at the sound of her own voice, a little strained and
hysterical.
There was something preposterous, too, in the sight of Anson prancing
up and down the old room filled with all the souvenirs of that decayed
respectability in which he wrapped himself ... prancing up and down with
all his prejudices and superstitions bristling. And now Olivia had dragged
the truth uncomfortably into the light.
“What an absurd thing to say!” he said bitterly.
Olivia sighed. “No, I don’t think so.... I think you know exactly what I
mean.” (She knew the family game of pretending never to understand a
truthful, unpleasant statement.)
But this, too, he refused to answer. Instead, he turned to her, more savage
and excited than she had ever seen him, so moved that he seemed for a
second to attain a pale flash of power and dignity. “And I don’t like that Fiji
Islander of a daughter of hers, who has been dragged all over the world and
had her head filled with barbaric ideas.”
At the sight of him and the sound of his voice Olivia experienced a
sudden blinding flash of intuition that illuminated the whole train of their
conversation, indeed, the whole procession of the years she had spent here
at Pentlands or in the huge brownstone house in Beacon Street. She knew
suddenly what it was that frightened Anson and Aunt Cassie and all that
intricate world of family. They were terrified lest the walls, the very
foundations, of their existence be swept away leaving them helpless with all
their little prides and vanities exposed, stripped of all the laws and
prejudices which they had made to protect them. It was why they hated
O’Hara, an Irishman and a Roman Catholic. He had menaced their security.
To be exposed thus would be a calamity, for in any other world save their
own, in a world where they stood unprotected by all that money laid away
in solid trust funds, they would have no existence whatever. They would
suddenly be what they really were.
She saw sharply, clearly, for the first time, and she said quietly, “I think
you dislike Thérèse for reasons that are not fair to the girl. You distrust her
because she is different from all the others ... from the sort of girls that you
were trained to believe perfect. Heaven knows there are enough of them
about here ... girls as like as peas in a pod.”
“And what about this boy who is coming to stay with Sabine and her
daughter ... this American boy with a French name who has never seen his
own country until now? I suppose he’ll be as queer as all the others. Who
knows anything about him?”
“Sabine,” began Olivia.
“Sabine!” he interrupted. “Sabine! What does she care who he is or
where he comes from? She’s given up decent people long ago, when she
went away from here and married that Levantine blackguard of a husband.
Sabine!... Sabine would only like to bring trouble to us ... the people to
whom she belongs. She hates us.... She can barely speak to me in a civil
fashion.”
Olivia smiled quietly and tossed her cigarette into the ashes beneath the
cold steel engraving of the Signing. “You are beginning to talk nonsense,
Anson. Let’s stick to facts, for once. I’ve met the boy in Paris.... Sybil knew
him there. He is intelligent and handsome and treats women as if they were
something more than stable-boys. There are still a few of us left who like to
be treated thus ... as women ... a few of us even here in Durham. No, I don’t
imagine you’ll care for him. He won’t belong to your club or to your
college, and he’ll see life in a different way. He won’t have had his opinions
all ready made, waiting for him.”
“It’s my children I’m thinking of.... I don’t want them picking up with
any one, with the first person who comes along.”
Olivia did not smile. She turned away now and said softly, “If it’s Jack
you’re worrying about, you needn’t fuss any longer. He won’t marry
Thérèse. I don’t think you know how ill he is.... I don’t think, sometimes,
that you really know anything about him at all.”
“I always talk with the doctors.”
“Then you ought to know that they’re silly ... the things you’re saying.”
“All the same, Sabine ought never to have come back here....”
She saw now that the talk was turning back into the inevitable channel of
futility where they would go round and round, like squirrels in a cage,
arriving nowhere. It had happened this way so many times. Turning with an
air of putting an end to the discussion, she walked over to the fireplace ...
pale once more, with faint, mauve circles under her dark eyes. There was a
fragility about her, as if this strange spirit which had flamed up so suddenly
were too violent for the body.
“Anson,” she said in a low voice, “please let’s be sensible. I shall look
into this affair of Sybil and O’Hara and try to discover whether there is
anything serious going on. If necessary, I shall speak directly to both of
them. I don’t approve, either, but not for the same reason. He is too old for
her. You won’t have any trouble. You will have to do nothing.... As to
Sabine, I shall continue to see as much of her as I like.”
In the midst of the speech she had grown suddenly, perilously, calm in
the way which sometimes alarmed her husband and Aunt Cassie. Sighing a
little, she continued, “I have been good and gentle, Anson, for years and
years, and now, to-night ... to-night I feel as if I were coming to the end of
it.... I only say this to let you know that it can’t go on forever.”
Picking up her scarf, she did not wait for him to answer her, but moved
away toward the door, still enveloped in the same perilous calm. In the
doorway she turned. “I suppose we can call the affair settled for the
moment?”
He had been standing there all the while watching her out of the round
cold blue eyes with a look of astonishment as if after all those years he had
seen his wife for the first time; and then slowly the look of astonishment
melted into one of slyness, almost of hatred, as if he thought, “So this is
what you really are! So you have been thinking these things all these years
and have never belonged to us at all. You have been hating us all the while.
You have always been an outsider—a common, vulgar outsider.”
His thin, discontented lips had turned faintly gray, and when he spoke it
was nervously, with a kind of desperation, like a small animal trapped in a
corner. The words came out from the thin lips in a sharp, quick torrent, like
the rush of white-hot steel released from a cauldron ... words spoken in a
voice that was cold and shaken with hatred.
“In any case,” he said, “in any case ... I will not have my daughter marry
a shanty Irishman.... There is enough of that in the family.”
For a moment Olivia leaned against the door-sill, her dark eyes wide
with astonishment, as if she found it impossible to believe what she had
heard. And then quietly, with a terrible sadness and serenity in her voice,
she murmured almost to herself, “What a rotten thing to say!” And after a
little pause, as if still speaking to herself, “So that is what you have been
thinking for twenty years!” And again, “There is a terrible answer to that....
It’s so terrible that I shan’t say it, but I think you ... you and Aunt Cassie
know well enough what it is.”
Closing the door quickly, she left him there, startled and exasperated,
among all the Pentland souvenirs, and slowly, in a kind of nightmare, she
made her way toward the stairs, past the long procession of Pentland
ancestors—the shopkeeping immigrant, the witch-burner, the professional
evangelist, the owner of clipper ships, and the tragic, beautiful Savina
Pentland—and up the darkened stairway to the room where her husband
had not followed her in more than fifteen years.
Once in her own room she closed the door softly and stood in the
darkness, listening, listening, listening.... There was at first no sound save
the blurred distant roar of the surf eating its way into the white dunes and
the far-off howling of a beagle somewhere in the direction of the kennels,
and then, presently, there came to her the faint sound of soft, easy breathing
from the adjoining room. It was regular, easy and quiet, almost as if her son
had been as strong as O’Hara or Higgins or that vigorous young de Cyon
whom she had met once for a little while at Sabine’s house in Paris.
The sound filled her with a wild happiness, so that she forgot even what
had happened in the drawing-room a little while before. As she undressed in
the darkness she stopped now and then to listen again in a kind of fierce
tension, as if by wishing it she could keep the sound from ever dying away.
For more than three years she had never once entered this room free from
the terror that there might only be silence to welcome her. And at last, after
she had gone to bed and was falling asleep, she was wakened sharply by
another sound, quite different, the sound of a wild, almost human cry ...
savage and wicked, and followed by the thud thud of hoofs beating
savagely against the walls of a stall, and then the voice of Higgins, the
groom, cursing wickedly. She had heard it before—the sound of old John
Pentland’s evil, beautiful red mare kicking the walls of her stall and
screaming wildly. There was an unearthly, implacable hatred between her
and the little apelike man ... and yet a sort of fascination, too. As she sat up
in her bed, listening, and still startled by the wild sound, she heard her son
saying:
“Mama, are you there?”
“Yes.”
She rose and went into the other room, where, in the dim light from the
night-lamp, the boy was sitting up in bed, his pale blond hair all rumpled,
his eyes wide open and staring a little.
“You’re all right, Jack?” she whispered. “There’s nothing the matter?”
“No—nothing. I had a bad dream and then I heard the red mare.”
He looked pale and ill, with the blue veins showing on his temples; yet
she knew that he was stronger than he had been for months. He was fifteen,
and he looked younger than his age, rather like a boy of thirteen or fourteen,
but he was old, too, in the timeless fashion of those who have always been
ill.
“Is the party over?... Have they all gone?” he asked.
“Yes, Jack.... It’s almost daylight. You’d better try to sleep again.”
He lay down without answering her, and as she bent to kiss him good-
night, she heard him say softly, “I wish I could have gone to the party.”
“You will, Jack, some day—before very long. You’re growing stronger
every day.”
Again a silence, while Olivia thought bitterly, “He knows that I’m lying.
He knows that what I’ve said is not the truth.”
Aloud she said, “You’ll go to sleep now—like a good boy.”
“I wish you’d tell me about the party.”
Olivia sighed. “Then I must close Nannie’s door, so we won’t waken
her.” And she closed the door leading to the room where the old nurse slept,
and seating herself on the foot of her son’s bed, she began a recital of who
had been at the ball, and what had happened there, bit by bit, carefully and
with all the skill she was able to summon. She wanted to give him, who had
so little chance of living, all the sense of life she was able to evoke.
She talked on and on, until presently she noticed that the boy had fallen
asleep and that the sky beyond the marshes had begun to turn gray and rose
and yellow with the rising day.
CHAPTER III
When Olivia first came to the old house as the wife of Anson Pentland,
the village of Durham, which lay inland from Pentlands and the sea, had
been invisible, lying concealed in a fold of the land which marked the faint
beginnings of the New Hampshire mountains. There had been in the view a
certain sleepy peacefulness: one knew that in the distant fold of land
surmounted by a single white spire there lay a quiet village of white
wooden houses built along a single street called High Street that was
dappled in summer with the shadows of old elm-trees. In those days it had
been a country village, half asleep, with empty shuttered houses here and
there falling into slow decay—a village with fewer people in it than there
had been a hundred years before. It had stayed thus sleeping for nearly
seventy-five years, since the day when a great migration of citizens had
robbed it of its sturdiest young people. In the thick grass that surrounded the
old meeting-house there lay a marble slab recording the event with an
inscription which read:
From this spot on the fourteenth day of August, eighteen
hundred and eighteen, the Reverend Josiah Milford, Pastor of this
Church, with one hundred and ninety members of his congregation
—men, women and children—set out, secure in their faith in
Almighty God, to establish His Will and Power in the Wilderness of
the Western Reserve.
Beneath the inscription were cut the names of those families who had
made the journey to found a new town which had since surpassed sleepy
Durham a hundred times in wealth and prosperity. There was no Pentland
name among them, for the Pentlands had been rich even in the year
eighteen hundred and eighteen, and lived in winter in Boston and in
summer at Durham, on the land claimed from the wilderness by the first of
the family.
From that day until the mills came to Durham the village sank slowly
into a kind of lethargy, and the church itself, robbed of its strength, died
presently and was changed into a dusty museum filled with homely early
American furniture and spinning-wheels—a place seldom visited by any
one and painted grudgingly every five years by the town council because it
was popularly considered an historical monument. The Pentland family
long ago had filtered away into the cold faith of the Unitarians or the more
compromising and easy creeds of the Episcopal church.
But now, nearly twenty years after Olivia had come to Pentlands, the
village was alive again, so alive that it had overflowed its little fold in the
land and was streaming down the hill on the side next to the sea in straight,
plain columns of ugly stucco bungalows, each filled with its little family of
Polish mill-workers. And in the town, across High Street from the white-
spired old meeting-house, there stood a new church, built of stucco and
green-painted wood and dedicated to the great Church of Rome. In the old
wooden houses along High Street there still lingered remnants of the old
families ... old Mrs. Featherstone, who did washing to support four sickly
grandchildren who ought never to have been born; Miss Haddon, a queer
old woman who wore a black cape and lived on a dole from old John
Pentland as a remote cousin of the family; Harry Peckhan, the village
carpenter; old Mrs. Malson, living alone in a damp, gaunt and beautiful old
house filled with bits of jade and ivory brought back from China by her
grandfather’s clippers; Miss Murgatroyd, who had long since turned her
bullfinch house into a shabby tea-room. They remained here and there, a
few worn and shabby-genteel descendants of those first settlers who had
come into the country with the Pentlands.
But the mills had changed everything, the mills which poured wealth
into the pockets of a dozen rich families who lived in summer within a few
miles of Durham.
Even the countryside itself had changed. There were no longer any of the
old New Englanders in possession of the land. Sometimes in riding along
the lanes one encountered a thin, silly-faced remnant of the race sitting on a
stone wall chewing a bit of grass; but that was all; the others had been
swallowed up long ago in the mills of Salem and Lynn or died away, from
too much inbreeding and too little nourishment. The few farms that
remained fell into the hands of Poles and Czechs, solid, square people who
were a little pagan in their closeness to the earth and the animals which
surrounded them, sturdy people, not too moral, who wrought wonders with
the barren, stony earth of New England and stood behind their walls staring
wide-eyed while the grand people like the Pentlands rode by in pink coats
surrounded by the waving nervous tails of foxhounds. And, one by one,
other old farms were being turned back into a wilderness once more so that
there would be plenty of room for the horses and hounds to run after foxes
and bags of aniseed.
It had all changed enormously. From the upper windows of the big
Georgian brick house where the Pentlands lived, one could see the record of
all the changes. The windows commanded a wide view of a landscape
composed of grubby meadows and stone walls, thickets of pine and white
birches, marshes, and a winding sluggish brown river. Sometimes in the late
autumn the deer wandered down from the mountains of New Hampshire to
spoil the fox-hunting by leading the hounds astray after game that was far
too fleet for them.
And nearer at hand, nestled within a turn of the river, lay the land where
Sabine Callender had been born and had lived until she was a grown
woman—the land which she had sold carelessly to O’Hara, an Irish
politician and a Roman Catholic, come up from nowhere to take possession
of it, to clip its hedges, repair its sagging walls, paint its old buildings and
put up gates and fences that were too shiny and new. Indeed, he had done it
so thoroughly and so well that the whole place had a little the air of a
suburban real estate development. And now Sabine had returned to spend
the summer in one of his houses and to be very friendly with him in the face
of Aunt Cassie and Anson Pentland, and a score of others like them.
Olivia knew this wide and somberly beautiful landscape, every stick and
stone of it, from the perilous gravel-pit, half-hidden by its fringe of elder-
bushes, to the black pine copse where Higgins had discovered only a day or
two before a new litter of foxes. She knew it on gray days when it was cold
and depressing, on those bright, terribly clear New England days when
every twig and leaf seemed outlined by light, and on those damp, cold days
when a gray fog swept in across the marshes from the sea to envelop all the
countryside in gray darkness. It was a hard, uncompromising, stony country
that was never too cheerful.
It was a country, too, which gave her an old feeling of loneliness ... a
feeling which, strangely enough, seemed to increase rather than diminish as
the years passed. She had never accustomed herself to its occasional
dreariness. In the beginning, a long while ago, it had seemed to her green
and peaceful and full of quiet, a place where she might find rest and peace
... but she had come long since to see it as it was, as Sabine had seen it
while she stood in the window of the writing-room, frightened by the
sudden queer apparition of the little groom—a country beautiful, hard and
cold, and a little barren.
2
There were times when the memories of Olivia’s youth seemed to

sharpen suddenly and sweep in upon her, overwhelming all sense of the
present, times when she wanted suddenly and fiercely to step back into that
far-off past which had seemed then an unhappy thing, and these were the
times when she felt most lonely, the times when she knew how completely,
with the passing of years, she had drawn into herself; it was a process of
protection like a tortoise drawing in its head. And all the while, in spite of
the smiles and the politeness and the too facile amiability, she felt that she
was really a stranger at Pentlands, that there were certain walls and barriers
which she could never break down, past which she could never penetrate,
certain faiths in which it was impossible for her to believe.
It was difficult now for her to remember very clearly what had happened
before she came to Durham; it all seemed lost, confused, buried beneath the
weight of her devotion to the vast family monument of the Pentlands. She
had forgotten the names of people and places and confused the days and the
years. At times it was difficult for her to remember the endless confusing
voyages back and forth across the Atlantic and the vast, impersonal,
vacuous hotels which had followed each other in the bleak and unreal
procession of her childhood.
She could remember with a certain pitiful clarity two happy years spent
at the school in Saint-Cloud, where for months at a time she had lived in a
single room which she might call her own, where she had rested, free from
the terror of hearing her mother say, “We must pack to-day. We are leaving
to-morrow for St. Petersburg or London or San Remo or Cairo....”
She could scarcely remember at all the immense house of chocolate-
colored stone fitted with fantastic turrets and balconies that overlooked
Lake Michigan. It had been sold and torn down long ago, destroyed like all
else that belonged to the far-off past. She could not remember the father
who had died when she was three; but of him there remained at least a
yellowing photograph of a great, handsome, brawny man with a humorous
Scotch-Irish face, who had died at the moment when his name was coming
to be known everywhere as a power in Washington. No, nothing remained
of him save the old photograph, and the tenuous, mocking little smile which
had come down to her, the way she had of saying, “Yes! Yes!” pleasantly
when she meant to act in quite the contrary fashion.
There were times when the memory of her own mother became vague
and fantastic, as if she had been no more than a figure out of some absurd
photograph of the early nineteen hundreds ... the figure of a pretty woman,
dressed fashionably in clothes that flowed away in both directions, from a
wasp waist. It was like a figure out of one of those old photographs which
one views with a kind of melancholy amusement. She remembered a vain,
rather selfish and pretty woman, fond of flattery, who had been shrewd
enough never to marry any one of those gallant dark gentlemen with high-
sounding titles who came to call at the eternal changeless hotel sitting-
room, to take her out to garden parties and fêtes and races. And always in
the background of the memory there was the figure of a dark little girl,
overflowing with spirits and a hunger for friends, who was left behind to
amuse herself by walking out with the Swiss governess, to make friends
among the children she encountered in the parks or on the beaches and the
boulevards of whatever European city her mother was visiting at the
moment ... friends whom she saw to-day and who were vanished to-morrow
never to be seen again. Her mother, she saw now, belonged to the America
of the nineties. She saw her now less as a real person than a character out of
a novel by Mrs. Wharton.
But she had never remarried; she had remained the rich, pretty Mrs.
McConnel of Chicago until that tragic day (the clearest of all Olivia’s
memories and the most terrible) when she had died of fever abruptly in a
remote and squalid Italian village, with only her daughter (a girl of
seventeen), a quack doctor and the Russian driver of her motor to care for
her.
The procession of confused and not-too-cheerful memories came to a
climax in a gloomy, red brick house off Washington Square, where she had
gone as an orphan to live with a rigid, bejetted, maternal aunt who had
believed that the whole world revolved about Lenox, the Hudson River
Valley and Washington Square—an aunt who had never spoken to Olivia’s
father because she, like Anson and Aunt Cassie, had a prejudice against

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Objective Biology for Medical Entrance

Examinations Vol I Rajiv Vijay

Dr. Rajiv Vijay

1. Who is known as ‘the Darwin of the 20th century’?

12. Reproduction cannot be an all-inclusive deﬁning characteristic of living organisms because

21. Which set of organisms multiply through fragmentation?

34. Linnaeus evolved a system of nomenclature called

51. Identify the correct sequence of taxonomic categories.

65. Zoological name of man is

81. Zoological parks are places for

94. Tiger, dog and cat are placed in order of

1. Who was the first to attempt a more scientific basis of classification?

12. Kingdom protista contain

26. Find out the total number of false statements:

52. Amoeboid protozoans

C. Fungi as symbiont with algae ‒ Lichens

79. Following features belongs to class

93. Alternation of generation seen in all except

105. Viruses which infect animals have

There were times when the memories of Olivia’s youth seemed to

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