But when this stranger spoke freely to her mother about this subject and the other, she listened to him and was interested.
John Caldigate, without being absolutely handsome, was a youth sure to find favour in a woman's eyes.

He was about five feet ten in height, strong and very active, with bright dark eyes which were full of life and intelligence.

His forehead was square and showed the angles of his brow; his hair was dark and thick and cut somewhat short; his mouth was large, but full of expression and generally, also, of good-humour.

His nose would have been well formed, but that it was a little snubbed at the end.

Altogether his face gave you the idea of will, intellect, and a kindly nature; but there was in it a promise, too, of occasional anger, and a physiognomist might perhaps have expected from it that vacillation in conduct which had hitherto led him from better things into wretched faults.
As he was talking to Mrs.Bolton he had observed the girl, who sat apart, with her fingers busy on her work, and who had hardly spoken a word since his entrance.