Can we declare a class protected

You cannot declare protected classes at the namespace level because the access modifier for outer level classes defines their visibility in relation to other assemblies. The protected visibility is used to indicate 'visible to derived classes'; this makes sense on things inside a class, but normally has no meaning at the class level.

Why Classes cannot be declared as Protected?

There are only two valid declarations for a class at the namespace level, "Internal" and "Public". The only exception to this is an inner class, where protected visibility means that derived classes will have access to the inner class.

Nested Class

Are private class variables inherited ?

An inherited class has access to the public, protected, internal, and protected internal members of a parent class. Even though a derived class inherits the private members of a base class, members marked private are not accessible to derived classes for integrity purpose. You can access private variables/methods from a derived class using reflection or mark the members as protected.