Wary (Metaphor)
It was as clear as a day that the whole family was extremely nervous. The child’s illness made them sick with worry. The girl was “fairly eating” him “up” with her cold, steady eyes, and “no expression to her face whatever.” She didn’t move and seemed, “inwardly, quiet.” He knew that she was hiding something, that there was a mystery that he had to solve in order to save her life. However, the child wasn’t ready to give up either; she was going to fight to keep her secret.
Embarrassed (Metaphor)
The child was ready. As soon as the doctor moved his chair a little bit closer, the child’s hands “clawed instinctively” for his eyes. She “almost reached them” too. In fact she “knocked” his glassed “flying” and they fell “several feel away” from him “on the kitchen floor.” “Both the mother and the father” almost “turned themselves inside out in embarrassment and apology.” They couldn’t help it that their daughter refused to obey them.
Beautiful (Simile)
Though the child was extremely sick, the doctor could not help noticing how fairly beautiful she was. “An unusually attractive little thing,” he thought. She seemed to be “as strong as a heifer in her appearance,” but was just an illusion. The sickness had been killing her slowly but steadily. Some of her peers were already dead. No matter how strong she was, the disease was stronger. Only appropriate treatment could help her.
