Question

The House of the Seven Gables, an excerpt

Answer 1

Answer:

D.

Explanation:

The correct answer is D. Its structure and its history.  He states, "the best and stateliest architecture of a longpast epoch"(referring to hits structure) and "rusty old age" (referring to its history). Also, it was correct on the test.

Answer 2

The best answer would be A.
The entire excerpt describes the speaker's admiration of the structure, not just of its physical beauty but the history that came with it. This first part of the excerpt details the "recent rust". It is old and a bit rundown, but still very familiar to the speaker. The last part describes how the speaker is trying hard to imagine what the great house looked like when it was newly built --"early shine".