wife, and nothing, of course, to his daughter. Mrs. Bolton asked after
the Squire, and expressed a hope that her guest would not find the
house very dull for one night. She had heard that John Caldigate was a
fast young man, and of course regarded him as a lost sinner. Hester, who
was with her mother, looked at him with all her young big eyes, but did
not speak a word. It was very seldom that she saw any young man, or
indeed young people of either sex. 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. She was, he thought, the most lovely human
being that he had ever beheld; and yet she was hardly more than a child.
But how different from those girls at Babington! Her bright brown hair
was simply brushed from off her forehead and tied in a knot behind her
head. Her dress was as plain as a child's,--as though it was intended