Sit by me, Helen and take a good look at him." And, with a certain amused pleasure, the earl watched Helen's puzzled air at being made of so much importance, till the stranger appeared.
He was a man of about thirty, though at first sight he seemed older, from his exceedingly worn and sickly appearance.

His lank black hair fell about his thin, sallow face; he wore what we now call the Byron collar and Byron tie--for it was in the Byron era, when sentimentalism and misery-making were all the fashion.

Certainly the poor captain looked miserable enough, without any pretense of it; for, besides his thin and unhealthy aspect, his attire was in the lowest depth of genteel shabbiness.

Nevertheless, he looked gentlemanly, and clever too; nor was it an unpleasant face, though the lower half of it indicated weakness and indecision; and the eyes--large, dark, and hollow--were a little too closely set together, a peculiarity which always gives an uncandid, and often a rather sinister expression to any face.

Still there was something about the unexpected visitor decidedly interesting.
Even Helen looked up from her work once--twice--with no small curiosity; she saw so few strangers, and of men, and young men, almost none, from year's end to year's end.