Nell was deeply absorbed in her book, and for a moment Gwendolyn thought 
that her words had gone unheard. But a few beats later it became evident that 
the child was merely postponing her response until she reached the end of a 
chapter. Then she raised her eyes slowly from the page of the book. Nell was a 
reasonably attractive girl in the way that almost all girls are before 
immoderate tides of hormones start to make different parts of their faces grow 
out of proportion to others; she had light brown eyes, glowing orange in the 
light of the fire, with a kind of feral slant to them. Gwendolyn found it 
difficult to break her gaze; she felt like a captured butterfly staring up 
through a magnifying lens into the calm, keen eye of the naturalist.