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 \ ES AND NO. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 Lately Published, by the same Author, 
 
 In 2 vols, small 8vo. price 14s. 
 
 MATILDA :— A TALE OF THE DAY 
 
 THE FOURTH EDITION. • 
 
 " Blnsh I not % 
 Can you not read my fault writ in my cheek 1 
 Is not ray crime there V
 
 YES AND NO: 
 
 A TALE OF THE DAY. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF " MATILDA." 
 
 -^ — n-f^^ 
 
 Che si e no nel capo mi tenzona. 
 
 Dante. 
 At war 'twixt will and will not. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 HENRY COLBURN, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 
 
 1828.
 
 LONDON: 
 IBOTSOX AND PALMER, PUINTER5, SAVOY STREET.
 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 There are two different charges to which 
 the Author of a work like the following may 
 expect to be subject — either that he has copied 
 too closely from other fictions, or that he has 
 sketched too pointedly from individual nature. 
 To one of these he may inadvertently have 
 rendered himself liable by seeing much of men; 
 to the other, by reading little of novels. 
 
 To the accusation of plagiarism, if urged, 
 the Author can only plead the conscious inno- 
 cence of any such intention : to the imputa- 
 
 540034 
 
 ENfilNP
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 tion of personality, unless well supported, he 
 would be unwilling to attempt a serious an- 
 swer ; fearing that, in so doing, he might 
 justly be charged with "the puff indirect," 
 in supposing his characters so well drawn, as to 
 convey to any one the notion of individual 
 identity. But for this, however, he could most 
 sincerely protest, that he is not aware of any 
 intentional resemblance in any one character 
 or passage. 
 
 It would be certainly flattering if the reader 
 of a work like this should leave it with a 
 general impression, that similar persons in 
 such circumstances, either have, or would have 
 acted in a similar manner ; but the Author is 
 in this instance no more conscious that they 
 have done so already, than that they will do 
 so hereafter; and has just as much intention 
 to be prophetic as to be personal.
 
 PREFACE. Vll 
 
 The writer of the following pages owns, 
 with gratitude, that the unexpected favour 
 shown to liis former little production, was the 
 parent of the present ; but he is aware, at 
 the same time, that this is not a birth to 
 boast of — that popularity is no inheritance ; 
 but, on the contrary, as was once said by per- 
 haps the only living writer who never could 
 have had occasion to apply it to himself: 
 " The public will expect the new work to be 
 ten times better than its predecessor; the 
 author will expect that it should be ten times 
 more popular ; and it is a hundred to ten that 
 both are disappointed." This is no doubt ge- 
 nerally true ; and one may at least imitate, in 
 the humility of one's anticipations, him who 
 is, in every other respect, inimitable.
 
 YES AND NO. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 From infancy 
 
 They have convers'd, and spent their hours together; 
 And though the one hath been an idle truant, 
 Omitting the sweet benefit of time ; 
 
 Yet hath the other 
 
 Made use and fair advantage of his days. 
 His years are young, but his experience old ; 
 His head unmellow'd, but his judgment ripe ; 
 He is complete in feature and in mind, 
 With all good grace, to grace a gentleman. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 " And bring wax candles," said the tallest and 
 apparently the youngest of the two travellers, 
 who had just ahghted from that almost obsolete 
 mode of conveyance, a hack post-chaise, at the 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 Z YES AND NO. 
 
 door of a small but celebrated country inn, on 
 one of the great posting roads of England. 
 
 There was nothing in the mode of this arrival 
 which had called for particular care of the new 
 comers from any of the busy inmates of the inn, 
 nor had it therefore broken in upon their re- 
 gular routine of bustling inattention. 
 
 One of the travellers had thrown himself upon 
 a most uninviting sofa, and if his present posi- 
 tion could for a moment have been mistaken for 
 repose, it afforded the most conclusive evidence 
 of the dislocating discomforts of the hack chaise, 
 after which it was considered a welcome change. 
 
 His companion, (the tall gentleman men- 
 tioned above,) continued pacing the small 
 apartment to stretch his legs, an unnecessary 
 task, as, compass-like, two strides measured its 
 limits backwards and forwards. 
 
 Upon the next appearance of a waiter, loaded 
 with writing-boxes, dressing-cases, &c., he re-
 
 YES AND NO. 
 
 peated his former order in a more authoritative 
 tone — " Take away these," (with a contemp- 
 tuous intonation,) " and bring wax candles." 
 This order evidently excited the attention of the 
 waiter towards him who gave it j the idea of a 
 hack post-chaise being generally connected in 
 the mind of the knight of the napkin with such 
 gregarious animals as little boys going to school 
 with a single guinea for pocket-money, or brief- 
 less barristers going the circuit without the re- 
 motest hope even of that single guinea. Hasten- 
 ing to execute the first part of the command, 
 the scrutiny which he still continued of him 
 from whom he received it, prevented that per- 
 pendicular precision which could alone render 
 the removal of the culprit " mutton-fats" per- 
 fectly inoffensive. And " Boots," laden with 
 portmanteaus and travelling-bags, meeting them 
 on the threshold of the door, the gentle zephyrs 
 by which he was accompanied, caused their 
 
 b2
 
 4 YES AND NO. 
 
 sudden extinction, and carried back their odour 
 as far as the upturned nostrils of the gentleman 
 on the sofa, who had hitherto taken no part in 
 the arranoement. 
 
 " So like you, Germain!" he exclaimed, as 
 he started up. 
 
 " What 's like me," replied the other, laugh- 
 ing, " an awkward waiter, or a nasty smell?" 
 
 " No — that restless vanity which gives you 
 such an unhealthy craving for the good word 
 of all alike who cross your path, however unim- 
 portant or worthless their opinion maybe. You 
 could not bear that even in an inn, you should 
 be confounded with the common herd, and 
 were impatient to buy distinction at the price 
 of a pair of wax candles. This is what is so 
 like you — ' seeking the bubble reputation even 
 in a waiter's mouth.' " 
 
 This tirade was borne by the other with an 
 imperturbable placidity, which habitual expe-
 
 YES AND NO. 5 
 
 rience of the like must have joined with consti- 
 tutional good-humour to produce. 
 
 " My dear Oakley," he rephed, " do for 
 once drop the cynic this last night ; remember, 
 though constant fellowship has given you the 
 right to say whatever you please to me, that 
 our complete separation is about to take away 
 your power of doing so— and I would fain hope 
 that some little regret at what the future will 
 deprive you of, might soften the exercise of the 
 privilege the past has given you." 
 
 He paused a moment; and Oakley, who 
 really liked him better than any one else in the 
 world, seeming silenced by this appeal, and not 
 showing any inclination to resume his attack, 
 Germain continued : — 
 
 " Besides, I really don't see how the no very 
 uncommon peculiarity of preferring wax candles 
 to tallow, should subject one to have one's 
 whole character dissected."
 
 6 YES AND NO. 
 
 " Germain," resumed Oakley, quietly, but 
 almost solemnly, " you have alluded to our 
 long fellowship through boyhood and youth : 
 you are right in having done so, for the kindly 
 feelings which that has ripened, will, I trust, 
 long survive our present separation ; when, had 
 it been the kindred ties of cousinship alone 
 which coupled our names, the black coat on 
 the back of the one, for the death of the other, 
 would probably have first reminded the survi- 
 vor that the deceased had ever existed. For 
 as different as our characters, are likely to be 
 our pursuits. Indeed, so strange to me seem 
 all professions of regard, that I may as well 
 resume a tone of reproof, or you will already be 
 unable to recognise your old friend. But call it 
 by what name you like, it is sincere regard for 
 you which induces me to tell you, once again, 
 Germain, that you have a most unhappy facility 
 of character which will lead you to spend your
 
 YES AND NO. 
 
 fortune in acquiring things you don't want, and 
 waste your time in doing things you don't like j 
 and that, in over anxiety for other people's ap- 
 probation, you will soon forfeit your own." 
 
 " However I may feel convinced I am in the 
 right, I never could get the better of the argu- 
 ment with you : perhaps that very quality 
 which you call facility, (meaning weakness,) 
 and which I call candour, predisposes me 
 whilst I am listening to you, to acknowledge 
 there is some truth in what you are saying, and 
 your firmness of character which some mio-ht 
 mistake for obstinacy, prevents your ever yield- 
 ing a tittle. But I will put it fairly to you, 
 whether any one would have supposed the sen- 
 timents you have just uttered, to be those of a 
 young man of one-and-twenty, and whether 
 you think it was any advantage at that age to 
 have acquired the character you did last month 
 at Paris, where, as we were always seen to-
 
 6 YES AND NO. 
 
 gether, they compared us to English summer 
 weather. I was the smihng sunshiny morning, 
 and you were the cold cloudy evening that fol- 
 lowed." 
 
 " There," interrupted Oakley, " that is what 
 I complain of: it is never your own opinion upon 
 any subject. What people said at Paris you 
 repeat. But that can make no impression upon 
 me, though it is all in confirmation of my argu- 
 ment that it does but too much upon you." 
 And as he said this, he began stirring the fire 
 violently, perhaps instinctively, at the mention 
 of an English summer's evening, for it was the 
 10th of August, and the weather was truly 
 national. 
 
 " There," said Germain, " as you have inter- 
 rupted me, I must interrupt you. Look ! you 
 have put out the fire with your violence ; that is 
 what I complain that you do in society, which 
 you enter, as stiff and as cold as a poker, and
 
 YES AND NO. 9 
 
 attempt to carry all by storm. Now I should 
 have insinuated myself gently, and have soon 
 been received with reviving warmth, and par- 
 taken of its influence. Much as you know, 
 you have yet to learn the magic of manner." 
 
 " The gilding that makes falsehood and folly 
 pass current," muttered Oakley, as the entrance 
 of the landlady herself with the first dish pre- 
 vented further reply. This unusual condescen- 
 sion on the part of the portly dame towards 
 travellers in a chatter-box, (as a post-chaise is 
 denominated by its familiars,) was entirely pro- 
 duced by that order of Germain's which had 
 originated the late discussion between himself 
 and his friend. They had at first been con- 
 sidered as common-place guests, every-day sort 
 of customers, but the wax candles threw a new 
 light upon their characters; and as soon as 
 it was promulgated in the bar that the gentle- 
 men in " the Sun" had asked for wax lights, then 
 
 B 5
 
 10 YES AND NO. 
 
 the possibility that they might be greater men 
 than had been at first supposed, seemed to break 
 at once on the whole establishment. The land- 
 lady, even at the sacrifice of her papiUottes, pre- 
 pared to head the enlivening procession. The 
 landlord looked out for one of the illegitimate 
 offspring, born of the clandestine connexion of 
 sloe-juice and raspberry vinegar, in hopes that 
 claret would next be asked for, and the waiter 
 prepared to throw away a random shot or two 
 of " my Lord," and " your Lordship," which he 
 thought could do no harm, whether they hit the 
 
 right mark or not. The visits of the landlord 
 and landlady were " few and far between," and 
 
 could not be felt as interruptions, but the waiter 
 
 seemed determined, if possible, to gratify his 
 
 curiosity at the expense of the patience of its 
 
 objects. Nothing could get him out of the 
 
 room. 
 
 In the mean time, our travellers found occu-
 
 YES AND NO. 11 
 
 pation enougli before them to prevent their 
 unbroken silence from being irksome. But when 
 ill despair at their taciturnity, the waiter at 
 length took his leave, Germain broke out. 
 
 " It may be your taste to go through life as 
 if every man's hand was against you, and yours 
 equally against every man; but I don't see how 
 it can ever be a reproach to any one to be able 
 hereafter to say, ' I have bought golden opinions 
 from all sorts of people.'" 
 
 " What an accidentally apt quotation !" re- 
 torted Oakley. " You may well say 'golden' 
 opinions, for yours are bought, and that with 
 gold. It is such golden opinions that will con- 
 tinue to procure for you attachment hke that of 
 Mademoiselle Zephyrine, friendship like that of 
 Monsieur Partout." 
 
 Towards the conclusion of Oakley's last sen- 
 tence, the waiter had returned with a second 
 instalment of mutton chops, followed by an
 
 12 YES AND NO. 
 
 assistant witli the reserve of mashed pota- 
 toes. 
 
 " Hush — hush !" interrupted Germain, who 
 had particular reasons for not wishing the point 
 last mentioned to be argued in open court. 
 
 The fact alluded to was this : — Every one 
 knows that there is always a " rage" at Paris, 
 and this — be it hero or man-monkey — book 
 or bonnet — singer or monster — supersedes in 
 its ephemeral existence every other object of at- 
 traction. This rage of the moment when Ger- 
 main first went to Paris was Mademoiselle Ze- 
 phyrine, premiere danseuse at the Grand Opera. 
 The list of her admirers comprised all, and every 
 degree. As was once said or sung by a witty 
 friend of mine of a celebrated English actress, 
 
 " Her flowing curls entangled earls, 
 Her ancles county members." 
 
 It was absolutely necessary for every one who 
 
 had any pretensions to taste, to be to a certain
 
 YES AND NO. 13 
 
 point ill love with her; but Germain, who was 
 always very susceptible, passed this certain 
 point, and committed, accordingly, manifold 
 follies. 
 
 At this time, however, a useful and orna- 
 mental acquaintance of his. Monsieur Partout, 
 came to his assistance. This convenient friend 
 had previously endeavoured to initiate him into 
 the mysteries of the Salon, at appreciating the 
 charms of which he had found him rather slow, 
 and he now came to communicate the pleasing- 
 intelligence that Zephyrine admired his " main- 
 tien" and " air noble," that she had quite a 
 sentiment for him, in short, that she preferred 
 him decidedly to all her other admirers. It 
 never occurred to Germain that any part of that 
 decided preference could be at all attributed to 
 the very handsome settlement obscurely hinted 
 at by Partout, and immediately executed by 
 him J till the illusion was dispersed by hearing,
 
 14 YES AND NO. 
 
 one fine morning', that this Jidiis Achates, this 
 faithful friend, had gone bodkin between settle- 
 ment and sentiment in a chaise de poste on a 
 provincial professional trip to Bordeaux. His 
 vanity had been deeply wounded by the ridicule 
 of the whole transaction — it had hastened his 
 departure from Paris, and any allusion to it was 
 still disagreeable. 
 
 Oakley and Germain had been (as indeed they 
 have stated for themselves) educated almost like 
 brothers. They were both orphans, and related 
 on the female side, their mothers having been 
 sisters, Germain had inherited an ample, if not 
 splendid, paternal property. Oakley had very 
 great expectations from a maternal uncle; his 
 mother (who had made an imprudent match) 
 being the elder sister of the two. His present 
 destination was to answer the first summons of 
 his uncle to visit him. He and Germain had
 
 YES AND NO. 15 
 
 just returned from a continental tour, had 
 dropped carriages and couriers at Calais, and it 
 being the dead time of year in London, had 
 passed through that smoky wilderness without 
 stopping. Germain had resisted Oakley's re- 
 quest that he would accompany him to their joint 
 uncle, partly because the old gentleman, whom 
 he had never seen, had the reputation of being 
 a gloomy recluse, and no one had a more in- 
 stinctive horror than Germain of putting himself 
 in a situation to be bored ; and partly because 
 he could not bear the appearance of interfering 
 with what had always been considered as Oak- 
 ley's expectations in that quarter : and as the 
 character of this unknown uncle was notoriously 
 capricious, there was no telling what fancies he 
 might take if his two nephews presented them- 
 selves together. 
 
 Germain's present intention therefore was to
 
 16 YES AND NO. 
 
 take the opportunity of paying a visit to an old 
 private tutor of his, Mr. Dormer, who lived at 
 a pretty pastoral parsonage, about fifty miles 
 from the spot where he and his friend were 
 about to separate. 
 
 It was with this person, and at this parsonage, 
 that he had passed almost the only period during 
 his education, that he had been divided from 
 Oakley. For when they both left school, he not 
 being considered steady enough to be trusted at 
 collese so soon as his friend, had therefore been 
 sent to this intermediate purgatory, as at the 
 time he called it — yet afterwards, he found his 
 time pass pleasantly enough there ; and whilst 
 hd gave to Oakley, as a reason for his visit, that 
 " it was a proper attention to the best old fellow 
 in the world," there came into his calculations 
 of the expediency of it, certain recollections 
 of one Fanny Dormer, whose unbounded admira-
 
 YES AND NO. 17 
 
 tion of him, during his stay there, had been by 
 no means unwelcome, and had called for a re- 
 turn in kind from him. In short, when he went 
 away, he had felt as if actually in love — and 
 though the time that had intervened, and other 
 impressions which had interposed, had occasion- 
 ally caused him a little to doubt, upon recollect- 
 ing some of the boyish couplets in which he 
 used to celebrate her charms, whether there 
 might not be almost as much imagination in the 
 facts, as poetry in the metre, yet the thought 
 of seeing her again caused a pleasing sensation 
 as he called to mind the cheerful eye, the fresh 
 fair skin, and the frequent display of the most 
 brilliantly white teeth in the world, which fol- 
 lowed the ever-ready laugh at the worst of his 
 jokes. And when the friends separated for the 
 night, though the ample justice done to the late 
 supper might have been supposed likely to make
 
 18 YES AND NO. 
 
 disagreeable impressions survive upon a rest- 
 less pillow, yet it was upon the fancied form, 
 not of Mademoiselle Zephyrine, but of Fanny 
 Dormer, that his eyes closed, as he slowly 
 dropped asleep.
 
 YES AND NO. 19 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ■ There's no art 
 
 To find the mind's construction in the face : 
 He was a gentleman on whom I built 
 An absolute trust. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 The next morning, having despatched an early 
 breakfast, our travellers were becoming rather 
 impatient at the slowness of the progress of the 
 preparations making for their separate depar- 
 tures, when these preparations were suddenly 
 interrupted by an arrival which at once en- 
 grossed the attention of the whole establish- 
 ment, and in a moment collected from hole and
 
 20 YES AND NO. 
 
 corner every one, from the Landlady down to 
 Boots. 
 
 It was a post-chaise and four which came clat- 
 tering up to the door; and the sudden jerk with 
 which it stopped, and the loud cry of " first and 
 second turn out," which followed, rousing its 
 slumberino; burden, caused him to raise him- 
 self from his Dormeuse. Germain recognised 
 
 the well-known Frederick Fitzalbert, whose ac- 
 quaintance he had made last winter at Paris. 
 The recognition was speedy and mutual. 
 
 " Ah! Germain, my dear fellow," said Fitz- 
 albert, rubbing his eyes and giving a portentous 
 yawn, " how goes it ? What, you too, I suppose, 
 have been dreaming of to-morrow ?" 
 
 Germain, to whom to-morrow conveyed no 
 distinct idea, and who had been dreaming of 
 nothingatall, (except, perhaps, a httle of Fanny 
 Dormer,) was rather at a loss for a reply. But 
 Fitzalbert soon enlightened him by continuing —
 
 YES AND NO. 21 
 
 " Latimer has lent me Peatbum Lodge, and 
 I am to have his moors all to myself — Where 
 are you going to ?" 
 
 "Why, as 1 am but just returned from Paris, 
 I have not been able to make any arrangements, 
 and therefore I have not -" stammered Ger- 
 main, struggling in vain against a sense of 
 shame at not having any moors to shoot upon ; 
 when five minutes before, he would as soon 
 have repined at not having the mines of Gol- 
 Gonda. 
 
 Fitzalbert was one of those whose good word 
 was conceived at once to confer fame in the 
 world of fashion. He had taken a great fancy 
 to Germain at Paris, and in the course of their 
 acquaintance had much amused him with his 
 ever-ready turn for quizzing, the recollection of 
 which talent, however Germain had enjoyed it 
 when applied to others, had left a feeling of 
 fear lest it should be exercised against himself.
 
 22 YES AND NO. 
 
 " I have not got any moors," he therefore re- 
 luctantly acknowledged. 
 
 " You had much better come with me then, 
 my dear fellow," said Fitzalbert ; "you shall 
 have a separate beat and a separate bed, and 
 for the rest of the four-and -twenty hours I 
 shall be delighted with your company." 
 
 " I should like it very much," said Germain^ 
 " but I have engaged myself " 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Dormer and Rosedale Rectory 
 were on the threshold of his hps, but he checked 
 himself; for though the mere fact of paying a 
 visit to an old parson might only be reckoned a 
 twaddle, yet he could not bear the idea of the 
 cross-examination which might follow ; and it 
 seemed little less than suicide, to run the chance 
 of offering to his satirical friend such a fund for 
 ridicule as " pastoral parsonage," " private 
 tutor," " pretty daughter," and " first love," 
 compared to which fair game, the loan even of
 
 YES AND NO. 23 
 
 Lord Latimer's moors, abundant as they might 
 prove, would afford but poor promise of sport. 
 He therefore left that sentence unfinished, and 
 replied instead ; " But I have neither gun nor 
 shooting dress with me." 
 
 " Oh ! as for that," said Fitzalbert, " I 
 have four guns with me — a Joe, a John, and 
 two Eggs, from which I choose according as I 
 feel in the morning. You may always have any 
 one of the other three : and as to shootingr cos- 
 
 tume, I believe 1 have got with me all the dif- 
 ferent dresses of the last five years, most of 
 which have never been worn." 
 
 It need hardly be added, that the end of all 
 this was, that Germain was persuaded to alter 
 his destination, and to accompany Fitzalbert to 
 Peatburn Loda'e. 
 
 " Then, instead of sleeping over another 
 stage," said Fitzalbert, " I will dress here, and 
 be ready for you in a few minutes. — Here,
 
 24 YES AND NO. 
 
 Le Clair, take out all this lumber, and make 
 room for Mr. Germain," added he, opprobriously 
 shovelling out new publications by the dozen, 
 which had hitherto slept quietly, side by side 
 with him, and were now discarded with leaves 
 as yet uncut, and the stiffness of still unbroken 
 boards. 
 
 " And what am I to do with all these ?" 
 asked Le Clair. 
 
 " Leave them here, to be sure ; let the cham- 
 bermaids study sentiment from the novels, and 
 the post-boys learn geography from the tra- 
 vels — they will have found their proper level at 
 last. But," added he to Germain, " who is 
 that with you ?" 
 
 " Oakley; youmustremember him at Paris." 
 
 " What, still inseparable ! Have you not 
 got quit of him yet ? Well, my Frankenstein, 
 1 must rid you of Le Monstre, as we used to 
 call him."
 
 YES AND NO. 25 
 
 When Germain went to take leave of Oak- 
 ley, and to announce to him that he was going 
 grouse-shooting with Fitzalbert — " Grouse- 
 shooting ?" asked Oakley ; — '* well, remember 
 that Fitzalbert is sometimes supposed a — a 
 pretty good long shot at a pigeon, that's all." 
 
 Before Germain could reply, it was an- 
 nounced that Fizalbert was ready, and the cou- 
 sins took a hastyleaveof each other; for though 
 there was an end of their companionship, yet as 
 they had purposed shortly to meet in London, 
 they did not consider this separation as final. 
 
 Fitzalbert was one of the best specimens of 
 that sect whose whole soul is centered in self ; 
 for, after having well weighed and duly con- 
 sidered the question in all its bearings, pro- 
 vided he was perfectly convinced that no pos- 
 sible inconvenience could arise to himself, he 
 would rather do a good-natured thing than not. 
 And he was even supposed to have derived real 
 
 VOL. I. c
 
 26 YES AND NO. 
 
 satisfaction from the pleasure his doing so gave 
 to others. But most of his actions originated 
 in more compound calculations ; for as his ob- 
 jects were never on a grand scale, his acute and 
 calculating character would enable him to fore- 
 see advantages to himself from trifles, which a 
 more enlarged mind or a more careless dispo- 
 sition would alike have overlooked. Whether 
 it was from the successful exertion of these 
 qualities, or from some other cause, he was one 
 of those phenomena which puzzle the world, — 
 a man who, without any visible means of sub- 
 sistence, always continued in the enjoyment of 
 every luxury, whilst distress and ruin were con- 
 stantly assailing his more wealthy companions. 
 He was constitutionally good-humoured, and 
 he had such a happy knack in conversation, 
 that though he never spared an absent friend, 
 the attack seemed at once unintentional and 
 irresistible — he liked him even whilst he lashed.
 
 YES AND NO. 27 
 
 He could expose his most secret follies with an 
 air of regard, and if the object of the general 
 laugh he had just raised had entered the room 
 at the moment, every one would rather have 
 expected him to join in the jest than to resent 
 it. All his qualities, as an agreeable member 
 of society, were crowned by an easy off-hand 
 manner, which most people avowedly (and pro- 
 bably all) really prefer to the Grandison, Gold- 
 Stick sort of address. 
 
 There were many reasons which induced him 
 to take up Germain : first, his society was 
 welcome, as that of a cheerful, agreeable, good- 
 humoured fellow, who, he observed with plea- 
 sure, had a great respect for him. In the next 
 place, Germain's fortune, connexions, and per- 
 sonal qualifications, were such as to entitle him 
 to make a great figure in the world when he 
 should come out; and Fitzalbert had expe- 
 rience enough of the world to know that there 
 
 c 2
 
 28 VES AND NO. 
 
 IS an awkward period, when a young man is 
 not quite fledged, when a little attention goes a 
 great way, and is afterwards gratefully remem- 
 bered. Then perhaps (for it was by no means 
 a trifle beneath his consideration,) he easily 
 perceived that Germain was not much of a 
 sportsman ; and as he was going to shoot prin- 
 cipally ^br book, and to boast of it afterwards, 
 he had no objection to a foil. 
 
 Fitzalbert was in high spirits, and as well in- 
 clined to be amusing, as Germain was to be 
 amused. The journey was therefore agreeable 
 to both parties, though of the topics chosen by 
 Fitzalbert, some might in less skilful hands 
 have been tiresome, and others offensive. 
 
 He expatiated, in the first place, at very con- 
 siderable length, upon the peculiar merits of 
 every thing about or belonging to himself, — 
 his carriage, his dogs, and his dress ; from 
 this, by an easy transition, he became inquisi-
 
 YES AND NO. 29 
 
 tive about Germain's private concerns, and 
 those too of a more important description, such 
 as his fortune, his prospects, future plans, 
 &,c. But the manner in which he handled these 
 subjects made even his egotism interesting, and 
 gave an appearance of friendly concern to his idle 
 curiosity. These topics being at length exhaust- 
 ed, it was natural that, as they approached 
 Peatburn Lodge, Lord and Lady Latimer should 
 be brought upon the tapis. Of them Germain 
 (who, it must be recollected, was not fairly 
 launched into the world) had only heard just 
 enough to make him wish to hear more. 
 
 " I must take the very first opportunity to 
 make you acquainted with the Latimers," said 
 Fitzalbert. " Latimer," continued he, *' to 
 ninety-nine men in a hundred, would seem one 
 of themselves — that is, he drives a cah down 
 the same streets, and sits in the same club- 
 window — but he has, or rather had, qualities of
 
 30 YES AND NO. 
 
 a higher order. His talents are rusted by in- 
 dolence, and his principles warped by prejudice. 
 It is his misfortune to combine with a naturally 
 o-enerous disposition, an irresistible inclination 
 to be sharp and knowing, which he has ac- 
 quired in the world. He would lend a friend a 
 thousand pounds, and do him out of ten of it. 
 He would give all he has, and take all he can 
 get — an exchange by no means advantageous ; 
 and as he himself boasts of his littlenesses, and 
 no one is equally busy in telling of his liberality, 
 the balance in coin and character is ag-ainst 
 him ; and all this for want of some adequate 
 employment for an active mind." 
 
 " And Lady Latimer?" interrupted Germain, 
 to whom this portrait of her lord did not appear 
 particularly attractive. 
 
 " Oh, I cannot attempt to describe her, 
 either in person or character ; only by way of 
 warning, don't fall in love with her."
 
 YES AND NO. 31 
 
 " Who was she ?" asked Germain, adopting 
 the regular routine of inquiry upon such occa- 
 sions. 
 
 " A Sydenham — Lady Louisa Sydenham. 
 She and Latimer came out the same year, and 
 were both very much admired. In short, they 
 were the talk of the hour. I believe it bored 
 them always to hear their names coupled, and 
 so they married, — a very effectual expedient, 
 for no one now ever mentions them tooe- 
 ther." 
 
 " Let me see," said his companion, " Syden 
 ham — then she was a daughter of Lady Flam- 
 borough." 
 
 " Yes," rejoined Fitzalbert, " her first and 
 hitherto only successful specuk "on. If any 
 thing could have warned off Latimer, it would 
 have been the dread of Lady Flamborough's 
 manoeuvring. As for Caroline and Jane, I 
 should be sorry to prophesy their fate, pretty
 
 32 YES AND NO. 
 
 girls as they are. By the bye, suppose, after 
 all, she was to catch you ? You are rather sen- 
 timental, I think, and I foresee she will cer- 
 tainly make a dead set at it." 
 
 There was something in the tone in which 
 this was said, too nearly approaching to banter, 
 to be perfectly pleasing to Germain. The idea, 
 too, of being " caught," was in itself not flat- 
 tering, and, after all, made it more mortifying. 
 He could not help looking a little disgusted, 
 which being perceived by Fitzalbert, who had 
 no wish to produce any such effect, he turned 
 the conversation. 
 
 " I dined, for my sins," he resumed, "with 
 Lady Flamborough yesterday, just before I set 
 out. It was her first culinary attempt since the 
 death of my Lord, and was undertaken in con- 
 sequence of balls and accidental rencontres 
 being at an end, as a desperate attempt to bring 
 Sir Gregory Greenford to the point before they
 
 YES AND NO. 33 
 
 all separate for the season. Quite a failure ; I 
 never shall forget her look of despair, when the 
 feelings of the managing mistress of the house 
 struggled with those of the manoeuvring mother, 
 when she perceived that the petits pates, and 
 the pdtts meles had got next each other, and that 
 Carohne and the baronet had not." 
 
 All further discussion of the disasters of the 
 last evening was interrupted by the deepenins; 
 shades of the present bringing them to their 
 destination. 
 
 Peatburn Lodge was situated in a deep glen 
 in the midst of extensive moors. In front, a 
 brook meandered through the meadow, which 
 interposed between a small neglected flower- 
 garden, and the steep banks of the heather- 
 topped hills, the sides of which were scantiljv 
 clothed with a straggling fir plantation. There 
 was no attempt at a pleasure-ground, for the 
 
 c 5
 
 34 YES AND NO. 
 
 twenty yards of gravel road that led from the 
 gate of the garden, to the front door, had been 
 carefully raked and rolled for their arrival. The 
 house was small, and though it had some distin- 
 guishing marks of a gentleman's residence, yet 
 it seemed as if it had been promoted from the 
 ranks, and had at some time been a bona fide 
 cottage. 
 
 The whole scene was one, the impression of 
 which must have depended upon the state of 
 the spirits when it was visited. But at pre- 
 sent the sun was setting brilliantly, and gave a 
 gaiety to all around, as stepping from their car- 
 riages, Germain and Fitzalbert strolled through 
 the long grass which divided the weed-grown 
 plots of the flower-garden, where various rare 
 plants were growing wild, and left to themselves 
 to struggle with briars and brambles for their 
 existence.
 
 YES AND NO. 35 
 
 " These were Lady Latimer's handy work 
 the year she was married," said Fit/albert. 
 " Latimer has not seen her since. You pro- 
 bably never heard of an old savage who lives 
 not far from here. Lord Rockino;ton ?" 
 
 " Only my uncle," said Germain. 
 
 " True ; so he is — but never mind, uncles 
 I reckon fair game ; but as I was saying, Lati- 
 mer had a law-suit with your uncle about 
 boundaries, and was cast wrongfully, as he says ; 
 and though this new limitation was twenty 
 miles off, he said he would as soon shoot 
 fowls in a farm-yard, as come here to be cramped 
 and confined. They talk of the deadly feuds of 
 wild Indians, but for genuine unconquerable 
 hatred, give me country neighbours in this 
 Christian country." 
 
 A plain but ample supper, provided by the 
 gamekeeper's wife, was here a welcome inter-
 
 36 YES AND NO. 
 
 ruption; and by the help of a most mmute 
 examination and trial of all the four guns, 
 they contrived to get through the rest of the 
 evening.
 
 YES AND NO. 37 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 -Wilt thou bunt? 
 
 The hounds shall make the welkin answer them, 
 And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 "What sort of a morning?" said Fitzalbert 
 to Le Clair, as he entered his room at six, the 
 prescribed hour. 
 
 " Fine, only rather thick— a sort of fog," 
 was the reply. 
 
 " Ay— only heat, it will be a broiling day ; 
 so, call Mr. Germain immediately."
 
 38 YES AND NO. 
 
 " Now for it," said Fitzalbert, rising: from 
 the breakfast table, and walking towards the 
 window; "why it can't mean to rain!" he 
 added, in a tone of mingled astonishment and 
 reproach. 
 
 But it certainly did mean to rain ; and any 
 suspense on the subject that it might have 
 maintained was thrown aside, now that it had 
 them perfectly equipped, completely break- 
 fasted, and utterly resourceless at this early 
 hour. 
 
 Nor was this the worst ; rain alone, if light, 
 might be braved, if heavy, could not last ; but 
 it had now acquired a most formidable auxiliary, 
 " The sort of fog," from which Fitzalbert's 
 sanguine expectations had anticipated heat, 
 had already, when they came to the window, 
 enveloped the heather-topped hill opposite. 
 Slowly descending, it wound about the strag- 
 gling fir plantation ; still thickening as it ad-
 
 YES AND NO. 39 
 
 vanced, it gave a gigantic appearance to the 
 cattle browsing on the lower pastures, as for a 
 while they were still indistinctly seen — then 
 Lady Latimer's neglected exotics looked more 
 than ever unhappy under its influence ; at last, 
 even these were completely obscured, and not 
 an object could be distinguished beyond the 
 fresh marks left by their own recent arrival on 
 the otherwise unbroken surface of the travel 
 road. Each wheel track was soon a running 
 stream, and every hoof-mark contained water 
 enough to reflect the pattering rain. 
 
 Fitzalbert had watched the progress of the 
 storm with a whistle, which Germain was too ob- 
 servant to mistake for indifference, and though 
 he did not care so much for the disappoint- 
 ment himself, yet as he could suggest no ade- 
 quate topic of consolation, he prudently said 
 nothing. 
 
 " Pleasant!" was all that Fitzalbert at length
 
 40 YES AND NO. 
 
 exclaimed, but no word, or words, could have 
 conveyed so much as the look which he alter- 
 nately cast at an old-fashioned clock which had 
 yet to strike seven, and at the dilapidations of 
 the breakfast-table, which shewed that even 
 that resource was numbered with the things 
 that were past. 
 
 The horror of this situation was increased by 
 learning, from the most weather-wise of the local 
 authorities, that this was what was called in 
 that part of the country a Sea-fret ; and that 
 its usual duration was three days. Lord Lati- 
 mer's limits were even more circumscribed by 
 the German Ocean on one side, than they were 
 by Lord Rockington on the other ; and his 
 marine majesty sometimes proved, as on the 
 present occasion, the most encroaching and in- 
 trusive neighbour of the two. It is no draw- 
 back upon Fitzalbert's general estimation of his 
 friend, that as he looked round at the book-
 
 YES AND NO. 41 
 
 shelves, he regretted at the moment that he had 
 exchanged for him those discarded tomes of 
 which he had spoken so shghtingly — and he 
 would gladly have wished him away, to have 
 had the dullest of the productions of the day, 
 the weakest literary bantling that ever drao-o-ed 
 out a few weeks' existence, " dieted on praises, 
 sauced with lies." The few apartments were 
 soon ransacked for resources, but without suc- 
 cess. In Lady Latimer's they found a piano- 
 forte, some netting-needles, and a paint-box, 
 — all equally satisfactory ! Some neatly bound 
 volumes were seized with avidity, but, alas ! 
 they turned out to contain only manuscript 
 music, and water-coloured drawino;s. In the 
 course of their search, they stumbled into the 
 old gamekeeper's own room ; here they did find 
 one book between them — it was about half 
 " The Whole Duty of Man," with the first and 
 last leaves torn out, probably for wadding.
 
 42 YES AND NO. 
 
 " By the bye," exclaimed Fitzalbert, his 
 noble countenance hghting up, evidently with 
 a bright thought, " I wonder whether they 
 have any cards in the house ; let's send for old 
 Coverdale, and ask." 
 
 Old Coverdale had been gamekeeper in Lord 
 Latimer's father's time, but as the present Lord 
 had always brought all his shooting establish- 
 ment from Latimer, he had (though somewhat 
 superannuated) continued him for his negative 
 qualities ; for though he could no longer shoot 
 much himself, he would not let any one 
 else shoot at all. Fitzalbert too, having sent 
 his own man with his dogs, was independent 
 of the veteran's somewhat rheumatic assist- 
 ance. 
 
 '* Are there any cards in the house?" asked 
 Fitzalbert, as old Coverdale hobbled in. 
 
 " Na', there not loik," growled out the old 
 man, who had grown a little Methodistical in
 
 YES AND NO. 43 
 
 his solitude, and had therefore a horror of such 
 abominations. 
 
 " But could not you get us a pack?" 
 *' Why, any thing in loife for you, gentlemen j 
 but the gamest shop to find them is Jemmy Mac- 
 pherson, at Boggleby-Moorside : that's a matter 
 of sax miles, and Smoiler '11 be matched to get 
 there to-day, for he an so canny on his legs as 
 might be, and the road's a webit stony ; a power 
 of steep bank-sides — and Jemmy, I doubt, will 
 na ha' gitten his winter stock of any thing till 
 the first October carrier — neither cards, nor yet 
 flannel," added he, casting a rueful look at the 
 window, not out of it, for that was no longer 
 possible; and thinking, no doubt, that going for 
 one in such weather would render the other 
 necessary. 
 
 This last statement, which showed that Jem- 
 ray Macpherson was more famous for the variety 
 of his goods, than for the extent of his stock,
 
 44 YES AND NO. 
 
 prevented their proposing to send any other 
 messeno;er. 
 
 " May be you may foind some'at to whoile 
 away the toime in yon cupboard," said he, 
 opening a closet-door which they had not yet 
 perceived. 
 
 " Soho I" exclaimed Fitzalbert> as he prepared 
 to drag out from under a load of lumber a back- 
 gammon-board. " Well ! we shall at least have 
 a little chicken-hazard." 
 
 A backgammon-board it certainly was : that 
 it only contained a skeleton regiment of men, 
 signified not for their present purpose. Dice 
 they luckily found, but no box. 
 
 " This will be the very thing," said Fitz- 
 albert, taking one of a row of old Sevre's coffee- 
 cups, which Mrs. Coverdale had arranged on 
 the shelf above ; and with this ingenious sub- 
 stitute they set to work, and played for some 
 hours.
 
 YES AND NO. 45 
 
 " Seven's the main !" was alternately shouted, 
 with varying fortunes, and increasing stakes, till 
 at the end of the time, Germain rose a winner 
 of four hundred pounds. 
 
 " Pigeon-shooting," thought he, " I wish Oak- 
 ley was here;" and from this moment he had 
 caught the infectious love of play. 
 
 Fitzalbert did not in any way show the slight- 
 est annoyance at the result. To be sure, towards 
 the end of the time, he broke six of the coffee- 
 cups, but that was very probably an accidental 
 contingency. He seemed in much higher spirits 
 than he had been, and the next morning was 
 rewarded by the weather completely relenting, 
 in spite of the saying. He never shot better in 
 his life, brought home forty-five brace, and was 
 not a little gratified at Germain only having 
 attained a tithe of his performances. 
 
 On the next dav, the weather, thoush not 
 decidedly bad, was rather wild and windy. He
 
 46 YES AND NO. 
 
 proposed an adjournment to a neighbouring 
 watering-place; for he probably preferred to 
 any chance of obscuring his former brilhant 
 achievements, the being able to say, that in spite 
 of the weather, which drove him away, the one 
 day he was out, he had killed forty-five brace. 
 Germain, who had not been made more fond of 
 shooting by finding his performances so con- 
 siderably inferior to those of his friend, readily 
 consented. 
 
 Soon after their arrival they sought the beach, 
 which was the public promenade, and as usual, 
 covered with those shoals of the productive 
 classes from the inland counties, who annually 
 become amphibious in the autumn, and instead 
 of being pinioned between the counter and the 
 wall, sport themselves between high and low 
 w ater-mark — naked or clothed — tumbling out of 
 bathing-machines, or donkey-carts — according 
 
 to the time of tide.
 
 YE-S AND NO, 47 
 
 Fitzalbert, part of whose system it was to 
 affect even more than he felt of contempt for all 
 that was not useless, as well as ornamental, 
 exclaimed — 
 
 " A nation of shopkeepers, indeed ! but heaven 
 forefend that either cloth or cotton goods should 
 be denied their periodical plunge into the sea ; 
 for I swear one can smell the smoke of steam- 
 engines as they pass. Hands off, and a broad 
 walk, is all I bargain for." 
 
 As he said this, Germain felt himself lightly 
 touched on the shoulder, and a woman's voice 
 cried out, laughingly, " Ah ! we've caught you 
 at last, Mr. Germain." 
 
 Turning suddenly round, he could not be mis- 
 taken in recognising the form of Fanny Dormer. 
 True, it was not exactly what he had recol- 
 lected — the bright red and white was there, but 
 it seemed as if the former colour had made un- 
 due inroads upon the territory of the latter.
 
 48 YES AND NO. 
 
 The well-rounded form of the growing girl had, 
 perhaps, somewhat exceeded its former promise 
 in the full-blown woman before him. The bril- 
 liancy of the teeth remained unimpaired ; but 
 swell/ their ample display had not been always 
 owing to the size of the mouth. 
 
 These reflections passed rapidly through Ger- 
 main's mind, and had probably their effect upon 
 his countenance, though not perceived by Fanny, 
 as she gaily continued — 
 
 " Here's my father — his lumbago, which 
 caused our coming here, would have prevented 
 his catching you " 
 
 " So I despatched my Hebe after you," in- 
 terrupted a respectable looking middle-aged 
 man, with an intelligent countenance, and a 
 still fresh, florid face, though his nose might 
 be accused of engrossing more than its share 
 of the ruby, the origin of which usurpation 
 might be convivial, but if constitutional, would
 
 YES AND NO. 49 
 
 excite alarm for the future, as to the somewhat 
 unsettled hues of Fanny's complexion. 
 
 " How could you play the truant with your 
 old tutor?" continued he; " when we got your 
 letter, we delayed our departure from home, and 
 Fanny had prepared your favourite whipped 
 syllabub for you, for she never forgets any 
 thing," added the fond father, reciprocating an 
 affectionate glance with his dutiful daughter. 
 " And as you also were coming here, it would 
 have been so handy, for you might have come 
 bodkin witli us in the chaise ; you have done so 
 before now — do you remember Plateford races ?" 
 " And Wrangleby Sessions Ball ?" said Fan- 
 ny, her bright eyes beaming with undisguised 
 pleasure at the recollection. 
 
 '* She never forgets any thing, indeed," 
 thought Germain, with the reviving conscious- 
 ness of having made rather a fool of himself 
 upon that occasion with the rustic beauty. 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 50 YES AND NO. 
 
 " We thought it so kind of you," rejoined the 
 father, " to recollect your old friends imme- 
 diately upon your return to England ; and when 
 we talked you over upon the receipt of your 
 letter, Fanny said that she was afraid you 
 would find us rather dull after all the fine peo- 
 ple you had been living with. Why so, said I, 
 we have not changed, and his anxiety to see us 
 shows that he is not." 
 
 Germain was somewhat touched at the good 
 man's simplicity, and not a little ashamed of 
 being ashamed at the meeting ; so he replied, 
 almost earnestly — " But I hope you got my 
 second letter, saying how very sorry I was that 
 it was utterly impossible for me to fulfil my 
 intention of visiting you." 
 
 But though his better feelings dictated this 
 excuse, he could not help being annoyed at Fitz- 
 albert's presence. The imperturbable patience 
 with which this gentleman stood all the while,
 
 YES AND NO. 51 
 
 convinced him that he was imbibing food for 
 future ridicule ; and he feared, not without rea- 
 son, that he should come in for his full share. 
 He could not deny that Fanny's appearance 
 afforded not a Httle food for the gratification of 
 that taste. 
 
 " She ought to have known," thought he, 
 " that so small a bonnet must make her face 
 look ten times larger — and why that bright 
 green cloth pelisse, which looks as if it had 
 formed part of the lining of a pew in her father's 
 church?" 
 
 In the pauses of the conversation, he had sus- 
 piciously watched the movement of his friend's 
 eyes; he observed them fixed on the gromid 
 near Miss Dormer's feet. Even in the height 
 of his infatuation, he had occasionally had his 
 misgivings that Fanny Dormer had not a pretty 
 foot ; since then, his mind had been particularly 
 enlightened on the subject by his trip to Paris, 
 
 D 2
 
 52 YES AND NO. 
 
 as well as his taste formed during some of his 
 connexions in that capital, to which allusion has 
 been made, as to the best artificial modes of 
 setting off that very attractive part of the person. 
 Great was his horror therefore at seeing the 
 exposure of yawning leather boots, on which 
 Fitzalbert's eyes were rivetted : and taking a 
 hasty leave of father and daughter, with a pro- 
 mise to call on them, he hurried away. 
 
 " Where, in the name of wonder, did you 
 pick up those treats?" asked Fitzalbert. 
 
 " Mr. Dormer was the private tutor to whom 
 I was condemned on leaving school," answered 
 Germain. 
 
 " And you consoled yourself with studying 
 Ovid's Art of Love," said Fitzalbert, with a sup- 
 pressed sneer. 
 
 This was the only comment he made at the 
 time, and it was not till long afterwards that 
 Germain discovered that no part of the fore-
 
 YES AND NO. 53 
 
 going scene had lost in his hands by repetition. 
 Little was he aware that it was his own over- 
 evident morbid sensibility to ridicule which gave 
 the zest to the exposure, and that a more manly 
 indifference would have disarmed even Fitz- 
 albert. 
 
 It would be difficult perhaps to define exactly 
 the qualifications which insure at once, without 
 dispute and as a matter of course, a fixed posi- 
 tion in what is called the first society. Birth 
 alone will not do it. Wealth not only will not suc- 
 ceed alone, but is not always an indispensable re- 
 quisite. Neither personal appearance nor talents 
 will be separately sufficient ; yet a fair allow- 
 ance of the two combined, and a slight infusion 
 of one or both of the other two ingredients, will 
 go far towards establishing a claim to its fellow- 
 ship. But from whatever source the conscious- 
 ness of this fixed position in society is derived, 
 it exempts a person from nothing more de-
 
 54 YES AND NO. 
 
 cidedly, than from that which by some is igno- 
 rantly supposed its characteristic — a propensity 
 to cutting a casual acquaintance, on account of 
 his personal appearance, a weakness which arises 
 from a false alarm that the ridicule which at- 
 taches to a quiz is catching. Such a person, 
 secure of his own situation, — well-dressed him- 
 self, as a matter of course, not of care, — would 
 never imagine that there could be contagion in 
 the cut of a coat or the make of a gown, and 
 therefore would, even in the most public place, 
 without a moment's uneasiness, interchange 
 common civilities with the veriest quiz that ever 
 adorned a print-shOp. But as passports are 
 most examined in frontier towns, it is in the 
 outskirts of fashion that those who there occupy 
 uncertain settlements are most particular about 
 external badges, and can see exclusive merit in 
 their own costume, or mortal offence in that of 
 another. It is those who dwell on what may be
 
 YES AND NO. 55 
 
 called the debateable land of society, who are in 
 most constant dread of inroads from without. 
 It is here that shghts are incessantly fancied 
 from above, and intrusion perpetually feared 
 from below. 
 
 But independent of the situation of society, 
 there is an age at which fear of ridicule is epi- 
 demic. The aukward state, for instance, of 
 having ceased to be a boy, without being uni- 
 versally acknowledged to be a man. From this 
 state Germain was just emerging. This, of 
 course, gave additional terrors to the idea of 
 being quizzed about a privatie tutor, and may 
 account for a little of the otherwise indefensible 
 sense of shame he felt at the meeting with his 
 former friends. 
 
 For there was much to esteem in the character 
 of both father and daughter. Mr. Dormer was 
 an exemplary parish priest, and a kind neigh- 
 bour to the poor ; and if (as he never read but
 
 56 YES AND NO. 
 
 one side of any political subject, and never 
 heard either discussed) his prejudices had some- 
 what strengthened in thirty years' utter seclu- 
 sion, they were at least sincere, and had never 
 served as a stepping-stone to preferment. If he 
 seriously believed that it was the intention of 
 half the government, and one branch of the 
 legislature, to establish the Pope at Lambeth, 
 it was an opinion which he shared with many 
 who had more opportunities of knowing better. 
 Whenever the weekly county paper promulgated 
 the news of some fresh attack upon the church, 
 he insisted upon drowning the design in a third 
 bottle of port, and supporting the Protestant 
 constitution whilst destroying his own. Yet the 
 head-ache that followed never was known to 
 interfere with the timely composition of the 
 Sunday's sermon. 
 
 Fanny Dormer had not escaped the defects 
 almost inseparable from a masculine education.
 
 YES AND NO. 57 
 
 Not only she was learned, and was not accom- 
 plished, but in her slightest movement, almost 
 in her every word, it was evident that woman's 
 care had been wanting. In the innocence of 
 her heart, she said all that her high spirits 
 dictated ; and in the vigour of her fine active 
 person, she took every kind of manly exercise 
 that youth and health prompted. The little 
 defects in her appearance have been noted by 
 Germain ; but if it must be owned that she could 
 not make a decent gown for herself, she made 
 plenty of flannel-petticoats for the poor — and, 
 whatever fault might be found with the cut of 
 her outward garment, it still covered one of the 
 kindest hearts that ever breathed. 
 
 From this character of Mr. and Miss Dormer, 
 it may be expected that as Germain had now 
 seen more of the world, he might find the one 
 less a model for imitation — and the other, less 
 an object of attraction than he had done ; but 
 
 D 5
 
 58 YES AND NO. 
 
 that he should expect to derive less instruction 
 from the society of the father, or pleasure in the 
 company of the daughter, was no excuse for his 
 conduct at the meeting ; and though his facility 
 of character, and anxiety to appear well in the 
 world, may have done much in making him 
 dread the ridicule of Fitzalbert, yet his youth 
 is the best plea in his palliation. At thirty, his 
 conduct would have been inexcusable ; for, as in 
 the West Indies, the constant dread of the yellow 
 fever is considered a strong symptom that it is 
 lurking in the constitution, so an incessant fear 
 of being thought vulgar, is a sure sign of innate 
 and inherent vulgarity.
 
 YES AND NO. 59 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 This from a dying man receive as certain : 
 
 When you are liberal of your loves and counsels 
 
 Be sure you be not loose ; for those you make friends 
 
 And give your hearts to, when they once perceive 
 
 The least rub in your fortunes, fall away 
 
 Like water from ye, never found again 
 
 But where they mean to sink ye. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 Oakley was left preparing to obey the sum- 
 mons of his uncle, Lord Rockington, to pay 
 him a first visit. It has been stated that he 
 had been educated with the idea of great ex- 
 pectations from this quarter, but these were still 
 uncertain, as Lord Rockington was only his 
 uncle on the mother's side, and though he had 
 no nearer relation, the property was entirely in
 
 60 YES AND HO. 
 
 his own power. His character, too, was remark- 
 able for singularity, and his intentions had never 
 been formally announced. 
 
 The manner in which Oakley's attendance 
 had now for the first time been required, was 
 in itself strange : he had received a letter at 
 Paris desiring him immediately to proceed to 
 London, where he would hear further. Upon 
 his arrival there, he found another letter, de- 
 siring him to present himself at Rockington 
 Castle by four o'clock in the afternoon of a cer- 
 tain day, and on no account to fail in observing 
 the time prescribed. It was to fulfil this in- 
 junction that Oakley was now about to pursue 
 his journey. 
 
 Lord Rockington's was a name that had once 
 made considerable noise in the political world. 
 His military achievements had in youth, for a 
 time, even entitled liis head to swing on signs
 
 YES AND NO. 61 
 
 at ale-house doors. But his glories had been 
 suddenly overcast — he had had his reverses, 
 which had caused a re-action of public OjDinion. 
 Impeachment had been threatened, but not 
 persevered in. His name, however, was scratched 
 out of the Red Book, and his head painted over 
 on the sign-posts. Disgrace had driven him to 
 seek his present retirement, and his former re- 
 putation, as well as his more recent infamy, 
 were speedily alike forgotten in the quick suc- 
 cession which followed of greater events, and 
 perhaps greater men. Few ever inquired 
 whether he was physically, as well as politi- 
 cally dead. All know how soon the attention 
 of the world is turned, even from characters yet 
 undeveloj)ed, and events yet unravelled ; and 
 here was a man whom the public voice had 
 alternately praised and vituperated, each in its 
 highest degree. What more could be made of
 
 62 YES AND NO. 
 
 him? Indeed, for many years. Lord Rocking- 
 ton's name was never mentioned, even in those 
 circles where it had once been " famihar in 
 their mouths as household words," save when 
 now and then it was brought on the tapis in- 
 cidentally at Lord Latimer's, as that of a 
 crabbed old curmudgeon who spoilt sport on 
 the 12th of August. 
 
 When Oakley arrived at the last stage on the 
 main road, from whence he was to turn off to 
 his uncle's, great indeed was the wonderment 
 expressed at his ordering horses for Rockington 
 Castle ; it could not have caused more con- 
 fusion in the whole stable-establishment, if he 
 had desired to be driven to the North Pole. 
 
 " Why, is not this Lord Rockington's post 
 town?" inquired Oakley of the landlord. 
 
 " Yes, Sir, but it's a matter of twenty miles 
 off," answered mine host, ** and as to letters, 
 why for years that I have been post-master.
 
 YES AND NO. 63 
 
 there has never come a single one for him, nor 
 have I so much as seen the hke of his 
 frank." 
 
 After extracting from the tap-room a drunken 
 ostler, who was reported once to have driven 
 Lord Rockington's leaders when a lad, and ap- 
 pealing in vain to his recollections on the sub- 
 ject of the road then, and receiving only the 
 uniform answer — " Na, he never gi'ed I a drop 
 of owt when I's gitten them," the stable con- 
 clave at length decided, that after Bill had 
 turned out of the main road, down Ruggedrut- 
 lane, he must inquire the way. 
 
 Accordingly, after Bill had at length suc- 
 ceeded in convincing his puzzled posters that 
 
 they were not going their regular stage to , 
 
 and had made the turning down Ruo-gredrut- 
 lane, constant inquiry was necessary, but not 
 ahvays easy, as after quitting the attractive 
 neighbourhood of the great road, population
 
 64 YES AND NO. 
 
 became thinner, and straggling houses were 
 seen but at considerable intervals. Sometimes 
 their questions were only answered by a stupid 
 stare — at others, by " Rockington Castle ! Xa, 
 you munna gang there ;" but whenever they 
 succeeded in obtaining a direct answer, the 
 road evidently the most overgrown, and ap- 
 parently the least frequented, was the one 
 pointed out to them 
 
 Profiting by this hint, when, from no symp- 
 toms remaining of neighbouring habitation 
 further verbal inquiries became impossible, 
 Oakley adopted the plan of always taking the 
 turning over which he saw written, " ^o road 
 this way ; trespassers will be punished ;" con- 
 struing, under the peculiar circumstances of the 
 case, this regular warning as a direction-post 
 to Rockino;ton Castle, and the threat which 
 followed into an invitation to choose that 
 path.
 
 YES AND NO. 65 
 
 As he advanced, it was impossible that 
 Oakley should not be struck with astonish- 
 ment at the extraordinary appearance of the 
 whole face of the country : that which had 
 once been a well-cultivated estate was now 
 one vast wilderness. The hedges were undip- 
 ped ; the more vigorous plants, of which they 
 were composed, had shot up into wild over- 
 growth, and now remained dotted about in 
 irregular clumps, appearing like a dwarfish 
 forest wood. The ground, which had once been 
 tilled to yield its varied and successive pro- 
 duce, now offered, over all its wide extent of 
 surface, only the rank growth of uncropped 
 herbage ; and now and then among the trees 
 were seen at intervals the broken remnants 
 of apparently ruined buildings. 
 
 As Oakley's progress brought him under 
 one of those, he was at a loss to account for 
 the present state of the dilapidated dwelling.
 
 66 YES AND NO. 
 
 which seemed neither decayed by the moulder- 
 ing hand of time, nor crushed by the sudden 
 wrath of the elements, nor yet stripped by 
 the spoliation of human hands. It had been 
 rendered utterly uninhabitable; the covering of 
 the roof was scattered around ; and beams and 
 rafters, torn from their resting-place, were con- 
 fusedly leaning against the bared walls. 
 
 But in the lower rooms, the yet unbroken 
 state of the casements showed that no wanton 
 mischief had been allowed to intrude «pon its 
 deserted state *sinc?r the liotrr of"itl "^(Jevnttlition j 
 and tliat this had not been recent, appeared from 
 the size of two goodly trees, the unchecked 
 growth of which obscured the whole front, 
 and sent their topmost shoots over the bro- 
 ken roof, but when saplings, had, it seemed, 
 lent their supple twigs to form an arbour over 
 the heads of those who had last reposed, where
 
 \ESANDNO. 67 
 
 were still left the rotten remains of a worm- 
 eaten bench. 
 
 Oakley afterwards learnt, that upon Lord 
 Rockington's first seclusion, the whole of his 
 estate had been laid waste for the purpose 
 merely of stopping to its utmost limits his wan- 
 derings, without the chance of his being of- 
 fended with the sioht of a fellow-creature. 
 Extravagant as this may seem, yet solitude 
 was his mania ; and though he paid fifteen 
 thousand a-year for it, yet, what is not paid by 
 many to secure the const^lnt presence of the 
 " human face divine?" and none ever sought 
 society with half the eagerness that he shunned 
 it. The preposterous extent too of this sacri- 
 fice to a ruling passion, was somewhat dimi- 
 nished by his deriving thirty thousand a-year 
 from other estates which he never visited. 
 But though all this may account for the act
 
 68 YES AND NO, 
 
 on the mere ground of self-indulgence, yet 
 must deep disappointment, and consequent 
 misanthropy, have conspired to harden the 
 heart that could without a pang have given the 
 order, and unmoved have beheld its execution ; 
 for it was just one of those primitive, secluded 
 spots, where, in proportion as the social sympa- 
 thies are undeveloped, attachment to the soil 
 is strongest ; and the ejectment which left un- 
 tenanted that one deserted arbour which Oak- 
 ley had passed, destroyed more endearing ties 
 and more cherished associations, than would 
 have been disturbed by a whole century of im- 
 provements in a crowded metropolis. 
 
 Now, however, that time had hallowed the 
 work, the effect it had produced was wild and 
 picturesque. The outline of the country was 
 bold and abruptly broken : it had always 
 been one of those rugged regions over which 
 man seems to hold his control but by a
 
 YES AND NO. 69 
 
 feeble tenure ; and, in this instance, the mo- 
 ment of his abdication had been quickly fol- 
 lowed by the disappearance of any traces of 
 his authority, and Nature, in her wildest garb, 
 had as speedily resumed undivided dominion. 
 Even quickset hedges, those badges of man's 
 superintending presence, had thrown off the 
 rectangular livery of art ; and, scattered about 
 in irregular and tangled brakes, beneath the 
 wide-spreading arms of loftier trees, added to 
 the wildness of the scene. 
 
 All this harmonized peculiarly with Oak- 
 ley's existing feelings, and prepared his mind 
 for the events which were to follow. After 
 driving through many miles of this depopu- 
 lated desert, he arrived at the gate of Rock- 
 ington Castle. No softening symptoms of re- 
 turn to civilization had marked his approach : 
 it rose upon the sight like a mighty vessel 
 out of the bosom of the troubled waters, and
 
 70 YES AND KO. 
 
 stood in the midst of the wide waste in so- 
 litary grandeur, the only Avork of man for 
 miles around. 
 
 Rockington Castle was an edifice which 
 really deserved its cognomen of Castle, not 
 assumed merely on the strength of latticed 
 windows or a flag-staff, but deriving its title 
 from a period prior to the Conquest, crowned 
 as it then was with the identical turrets which 
 still overhung its eastern summit, and bearing 
 about in different parts the distinguishing 
 marks of each succeeding century except the 
 present; for it had fortunately escaped the 
 mongrel patch-work of modern improvements. 
 With the present day, it seemed to hold no 
 connexion. The shades of mailed knights and 
 warriors of the olden time might have been 
 expected to hover about so congenial a spot, 
 but that it should contain a living modern 
 master, seemed almost incredible.
 
 YES AND NO. 71 
 
 Oakley's postilion was obliged by main 
 strength to force back the great gate upon 
 its rusty hinges, and he found himself in the 
 grass-grown court-yard at the moment that 
 a deep-toned bell, the first symptom of inha- 
 bitancy, struck the appointed hour for his 
 arrival. 
 
 " My lord has just been asking for you," 
 said a veteran attendant who met him at the 
 door; " it is well you had not arrived too late — 
 he is sadly changed within these two days." 
 With this, he ushered him through a suite of 
 dilapidated rooms. 
 
 Oakley (to whom the idea of immediate 
 danger had never suggested itself, from the 
 methodical manner in which his presence had 
 been desired) was not a little shocked at this 
 declaration. The aged attendant left him alone 
 for a minute in a sort of picture-gallery, whilst 
 he proceeded to announce his arrival.
 
 72 YES AND NO. 
 
 There would have been much for a o-enealo- 
 gist, and somewhat for a connoisseur to study 
 in the gallery, which seemed devoted alone to 
 commemorate the martial representatives of the 
 family. There were seen warriors of every age, 
 from the first rudiments of the art of painting, 
 when coats of mail were sketched with a pencil 
 as hard and as stiff as the substance it depicted. 
 After them appeared a valuable specimen or 
 two of the matchless time of Vandyke ; then 
 came a profusion of the flowing periwigs and 
 shining breast-plates of the vain and frivolous 
 ao-e which followed, and which owes its immor- 
 tality to the colouring of Lely and of Kneller. 
 
 One alone was to be seen of a more recent 
 date, which rivetted the attention of Oakley : 
 it was a full-length portrait of his uncle on 
 horseback — he was represented in the prime of 
 manliood, at the moment of victory. As a work 
 of art it had few recommendations, but as a
 
 YES AND NO. 73 
 
 portrait it was perfect ; for it conveyed the ex- 
 pression so often experienced, without knowing 
 the person pourtrayed, of an indisputable like- 
 ness. It was an admirable head, surviving even 
 the almost overpowering profusion of daubed 
 canvas with which it was surrounded. True, 
 the horse was wooden, and the landscape 
 woolly. The retiring foe was rather shadowy, 
 and the smoke somewhat substantial, but the 
 countenance atoned for all defects : it was the 
 living man himself, and every muscle told a 
 tale of triumphant pride, and gratified love of 
 glory ; and as this must all have been drawn 
 from life at a subsequent period, it was evi- 
 dent that the character of the man had been 
 one in which the habitual indulgence of these 
 feelings had long outhved the moment of their 
 excitement. 
 
 Oakley was still gazing intently upon this 
 all but speaking portrait, with a feehng that it 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 74 YES AND NO. 
 
 was impossible not to acknowledge the supe- 
 riority that it seemed to claim, and to par- 
 take of the enthusiasm that it exhibited, when 
 he was summoned into the presence of the 
 orio^inal. The sudden shock of the contrast 
 was appalling. He might have even been pre- 
 pared to see a person from age and disease 
 wasted in frame, and worn in feature, but 
 not to behold a countenance which had long 
 lost every trace of the action — of that mind 
 which had given life to the picture — nor to 
 find that a piece of coloured canvas could ap- 
 pear animated by that commanding soul, which 
 
 no longer inspired the living form where it 
 still linoered. 
 
 Lord Rockington had been remarkable for 
 
 the height of his person, and the stateliness 
 
 of his deportment ; and his emaciated figure 
 
 now seemed to recover a momentary elasticity, 
 
 as ho half attempted to rise to receive his
 
 YES AND NO. 75 
 
 nepliew. A stranger-smile for an instant ho- 
 vered about his hps — how unhke the conscious 
 curl of proud superiority which marked the 
 mouth of the portrait ! A confused and unset- 
 tled stare had succeeded to the piercing glance 
 of the fiery eye which had fixed Oakley in that 
 picture, with which he could not help compar- 
 ing the unhappy object before him. 
 
 Lord Rockington addressed his nephew cour- 
 teously. " Punctuality, I see, has become a 
 practice as well as precept in the world. It is 
 twenty years since I last made an appointment, 
 and I had my own reasons for wishing this not 
 to be broken." 
 
 He paused from the exhaustion which fol- 
 lowed this first effort, and which seemed so ex- 
 cessive as to confirm the prediction with which 
 he resumed. 
 
 " Mr. Oakley, you have faithfully obeyed 
 the summons of a dying man." 
 
 £ 2
 
 76 YES AND NO. 
 
 Oakley expressed, in reply, an earnest hope 
 that in this he mi"ht be deceived. 
 
 " Words, worthless words," interrupted Lord 
 Rockington, evidently irritated. After so long 
 a holiday, must my insulted ear again echo back 
 empty professions before its failing sense is for 
 ever delivered from the sickening sounds of hu- 
 man hypocrisy and falsehood. I am a stranger 
 to you, odious by name, loathsome in person ; 
 I have given you no cause to hope my life. 
 Vou are my heir. Have I given you none to 
 wish my death?" 
 
 Oakley would have endeavoured to soothe 
 him, and to check these wayward ebullitions of 
 a distempered mind ; but Lord Rockington, as- 
 suming more composure, motioned him to 
 silence. 
 
 " I have much to tell, and little time to tell 
 it in. You doubt my accuracy in predicting the 
 impending dissolution of this care-worn frame.
 
 YES AND i\0. 77 
 
 Dispute with the pedant as to his knowledge of 
 that author whom he has spent a life in ex- 
 pounding. Teach the carrier's drudge his daily 
 course; but doubt me not in that which has 
 long been my only study. For twenty long 
 years life has been a burden ; I have sighed to 
 yield, yet still have been doomed to bear it. 
 To foresee some end to this lino-erino- torment 
 has been my only care. Many a time have I 
 mocked myself with false hopes, and the first 
 -welcome symptoms of disease have yielded to 
 an unfortunately strong constitution. At last I 
 am rewarded ; I have watched from their first 
 doubtful appearance the certain seeds of decay. 
 I have studied all that science has ever re- 
 corded, or experience taught of its symptoms, 
 its gradual progress, and final consummation. 
 xA.nd this is the day, almost the hour, I have 
 fondly anticipated." 
 
 Another protracted pause, from increasing
 
 78 YES AND NO. 
 
 weakness, succeeded, uninterrupted by Oakley, 
 whose attention was absorbed by the singular 
 declaration he had just heard. The stillness 
 of this mutual silence was broken by the suc- 
 cessive tones of various time-pieces which 
 Oakley for the first time observed were placed 
 in different parts of the house. It would 
 have puzzled him to account for the presence 
 of these generally unheeded warnings of the 
 monotony of the life they witnessed, but that 
 from what he had just been told, it seemed to 
 be Lord Rockington's occupation, to mark with 
 studied accuracy the creeping pace of time, that 
 he might foretell with certainty when its finger 
 pointed to his own last hours. Roused, by these 
 much-noted sounds, to a consciousness that time 
 was not to be lost. Lord Rockington resumed. 
 
 " It was not merely to exhibit myself a 
 common-place memento of mortality that I 
 summoned vou here. I would will vou heir to
 
 YES AND NO. 79 
 
 my feelings, as I have done to my fortunes ; 1 
 would bequeath you, not merely that wealth 
 with which I have been wretched, but that ex- 
 perience with which you may be happy. I 
 would have you despise the world as I do now, 
 not yield its easy victim as I once did. I would 
 leave as the best legacy this world can contain, 
 the consciousness that flattery is but the cloak 
 of envy — confidence but a premium for treachery 
 — that riches are but the means of purchasing 
 disappointment — and that fame is the mark set 
 up by fools to be the sport of knaves." 
 
 There was enough of constitutional distrust 
 in the nature of Oakley, as has been already 
 stated, to make him a deeply-interested, almost 
 an assenting auditor of the misanthropic dogmas 
 of his dying uncle. 
 
 " I would for this," continued Lord Rock- 
 ington, " dedicate my last moments to record- 
 ing the events and actions which marked the
 
 80 YES AND NO. 
 
 first part of a long life, and the reflections 
 which have accumulated from them in the latter 
 portion of it ; but all this must I crowd into a 
 score of sentences, and half as many minutes. 
 My task is harder too, because from long- 
 disuse words now refuse to follow at the beck of 
 thought. I had always enjoyed the substantial 
 favours of fortune : for a time I had strutted in 
 the tinsel trappings of fame. I had fought for 
 my country, and conquered. I was the people's 
 idol ; courted, caressed, and rewarded — it was 
 the heaven of an hour. At this time a distant 
 and disturbed colony required control ; I was se- 
 lected, from the difficulty of the task, and at 
 once incurred the greatest curse that can befall 
 
 the native of a free state — responsibility for the 
 exercise of arbitrary powers. I know not now 
 
 whether my acts were right or wrong : suc- 
 cess did not sanction them. One reverse suc- 
 ceeded another, exaggerated accounts of which
 
 YES AND NO. 81 
 
 were sent to England. Distance magnified my 
 delinquencies, and delayed my defence. 
 
 ** The reaction of public opinion was over- 
 whelming : I became the object of universal 
 odium. The most subservient of my crea- 
 tures, who had participated in my every action, 
 sought to save themselves at my expense ; and 
 when I thought I had been confiding in faithful 
 followers, I found I had been harbouring pseudo- 
 patriot spies. I was openly accused of cruelty, 
 indirectly taunted with cowardice ; and even the 
 most improbable suspicion of peculation was 
 widely circulated and readily believed. I hast- 
 ened to England to clear my character — every 
 ear was shut against my discredited defence, 
 every door was closed against my disgraced 
 person. 
 
 " I sought the minister whose verbally ex- 
 pressed intentions I had fulfilled, but as my 
 powers had been discretionary, I had no written 
 
 E 5
 
 82 YES AND NO. 
 
 instructions to plead. I was freezingly received. 
 He remembered nothing of the past, and for the 
 future referred me to the issue of a threatened 
 motion in parhament. On that anxiously-ex- 
 pected night, skulking in an obscure corner, I 
 saw my accuser arrive. I had last beheld him 
 presiding at a public dinner given in honour of 
 my victory. He was quickly surrounded by 
 troops of eager friends, giving assurances of 
 success, which his confident look confirmed. 
 He was loudly called on by name to commence, 
 when amidst much confusion, the minister inter- 
 posed, and stated that he had something to com- 
 municate which might render further proceedings 
 unnecessary. Breathless attention succeeded. 
 He then announced that it had pleased his 
 Majesty to dismiss Lord Rockington from all 
 his situations and appointments. 
 
 " The inhuman yell of delight, which under 
 the technical appellation of universal cheering,
 
 YES AND NO. 83 
 
 burst from all sides at this declaration, fell upon 
 my ear like the cry of blood-hounds fastening 
 upon their victim. Instinctively I sought to 
 escape the sound by flight, and yet it seemed to 
 linger in the distance. 'Tvvas the last greeting 
 of ray fellow-men. Twenty years have since 
 elapsed — I hear them still !" 
 
 Lord Rockington became violently agitated, 
 as if to exclude these imaginary sounds ; he 
 raised to his ears his withered hands — his wild 
 and haggard eyes seemed for a moment to start 
 beneath their pressure, then became fixed — the 
 universal shudder with which he had concluded 
 tlie sentence was succeeded by strong convul- 
 sions, and he remained for some time sense- 
 less. 
 
 Oakley summoned the ancient attendant whom 
 he had before seen, and who was the only one 
 allowed to approach his master, and demanded 
 whether medical aid could not be procured ; but
 
 84 YES AND NO. 
 
 the old man shook his head, and said he dared 
 not so offend his dying Lord. 
 
 After a time. Lord Rockington seemed by a 
 strong effort to recover his speech ; he raised 
 himself upright, then bending towards Oakley, 
 collected his remaining strength, and thus ad- 
 dressed him — 
 
 " Let those, who would scoff at the steadiness 
 of my misanthropy, triumph in the idea that 
 once again before I die I have sought the relief 
 of kindred feelings, that in my last moments 
 I have secured the congenial presence of one 
 whose sincerity even I cannot doubt — Yes, I have 
 found one who shall rejoice in my release, as 
 I do myself. My expectant heir shall as eagerly 
 count ray ebbing pulse. His ready hand shall 
 in sympathising pleasure return the convulsive 
 grasp of death." 
 
 These were the last words Lord Rockino^ton
 
 YES AND NO. 85 
 
 spoke. He had seized Oakley's hand ac he ut- 
 tered them. He then sunk senseless on the 
 sofa, and in a few hours this strange being was 
 no more.
 
 86 YES AND NO. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Heavens, have I said, the bounty of this lord! 
 
 How many prodigal bits have slaves, and peasants. 
 
 This night englutted! Who is not Timou's ? 
 
 What heart, head, sword, force, means, but is Lord Timon's? 
 
 Great Timon, noble, worthy, royal Timon! 
 
 Ah ! when the means are gone that buy this praise. 
 
 The breath is gone, whereof this praise is made: 
 
 Feast-won, fast-lost ; one cloud of winter showers. 
 
 These flies are couch'd. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 Eventful indeed had these few last hours 
 been to Oakley. They had brought with them, 
 crowded within their narrow limits, (and utterly 
 unforeseen, up to the moment of their arrival,) 
 changes which would have sufficed to fill up a 
 long hfe of anticipation. The emotions which 
 they had excited in his mind had been as varied 
 as the alteration they had produced in his situa- 
 tion was complete.
 
 YES AND NO. 87 
 
 He had that mornhig, for the first time in 
 his hfe, beheld one who was then his nearest 
 surviving relative. He had, though hitherto a 
 perfect stranger, been admitted at once to his 
 confidence. That confidence was as yet incom- 
 plete — when interrupted as abruptly as it had 
 been commenced by final separation. But this 
 strange benefactor had left him a solid memento 
 of their transient connexion, a splendid fortune, 
 which at once secured him the command of the 
 attention and attractions of the world, coupled 
 with the warning legacy which bade him repel 
 its advances, and resist its allurements. 
 
 To the substantial advantages arising from 
 his change in situation he was Hkely to be by 
 no means insensible, but this arose rather from a 
 disagreeable recollection of the slights to which 
 a dependent stajte had subjected his impatient 
 spirit, than to any expectation of particular 
 pleasure to be derived from future enjoyments.
 
 88 YES AND NO. 
 
 The parting advice with whicli the dying bequest 
 Imd been accompanied, was on many accounts 
 calculated to make the greatest impression on 
 Oakley. That it was disinterested could not be 
 denied, from the situation of him who gave it. 
 That it was dictated by a sincere regard for him 
 to whom it was addressed, had at the same time 
 been testified by solid proofs. The natural bent 
 of Oakley's character gave additional weight 
 to these considerations. Neither his virtues nor 
 talents were of that order which makes a man 
 partial to society, because society is partial to 
 him. A natural instability of temperament pre- 
 disposed him to take offence, whilst a want of 
 animal spirits prevented his shining in the ready 
 " give and take" of every-day intercourse. The 
 unpleasant impressions which these deficiencies 
 implanted in a proud and reserved nature, had 
 left a distaste for the world which had already 
 prepared the way for that distrust which was
 
 YES AND NO. 89 
 
 inculcated in the last admonition of his dying 
 uncle. 
 
 The aged attendant who had performed the 
 last offices to his departed lord had left the 
 room, and Oakley had remained, he knew not 
 how long, absorbed in the reflections, which all 
 that he had heard and seen was calculated to 
 excite, even in the most thoughtless, but which 
 had taken deep root in a mind to which gloomy 
 impressions were so congenial. The sight of 
 death itself is for the time saddening, even to 
 the most mercurial spirit ; but it was not that 
 alone which infected Oakley. It was not the 
 actual presence of the breathless body before 
 him, so much as the chiUing contagion of the 
 withered mind he had so lately communed with, 
 which still oppressed him. Most men, if thus 
 suddenly endowed with a princely fortune, whilst 
 possessing youth and health to enjoy it, pur- 
 chased at no sacrifice of kindly feelings, would
 
 90 YES AND NO. 
 
 liave felt even the decent solemnity of the pass- 
 ing moment somewhat checquered with the 
 coming gleams of the brightening future. 
 
 But this was not the impression made on 
 Oakley. He even envied the lifeless form before 
 him its release from the contests of the world, and 
 almost repined at being left as his deputy in 
 a situation where he must undergo the daily 
 drudgery of resisting imposition, and detecting 
 falsehood . 
 
 '• Must I then," thought he, " commence this 
 painful pilgrimage to which youth and health 
 threaten a long perspective, and can I do so 
 without dislike and dread, seeing as I have seen, 
 that by twenty long years of ceaseless struggle 
 and hopeless suffering, that proud spirit, the 
 transient gleam of whose former fire lives in 
 the canvas I this morning beheld, has been 
 reduced to a fit tenant for the care-worn car-
 
 YES AND MO. 91 
 
 case from which it has but now obtained its 
 release?" 
 
 Surfeited at length with the morbid indul- 
 gence of these feelings, Oakley sought a tem- 
 porary relief in change of scene, and rose to 
 leave the chamber of death, to which the shades 
 of night had now imparted a congenial obscurity. 
 The next room — the picture-gallery mentioned 
 above — was only lighted by a single small candle- 
 stick, left as it were carelessly on a table at the 
 up))er end, immediately under the portrait of 
 Lord Rockington, and to which alone of all the 
 inmates of the gallery it bent its feeble light. 
 The surrounding gloom gave additional effect 
 to that which alone was visible, and the coun- 
 tenance of which Oakley had only previously 
 remarked the habitually imperious expression, 
 seemed now to his heated imagination to indi- 
 cate some special command to himself, and
 
 92 YES AND NO. 
 
 following the direction of the outstretched arm 
 which pointed at vacancy, he fancied he beheld 
 a door open at the further extremity of the 
 gallery. 
 
 He could not be mistaken. He saw the figure 
 of the aged attendant, who advanced with a 
 cautious but a heavy tread, bearing in both 
 hands a weight under which he seemed ready 
 to sink. As he approached the candle, Oakley 
 raised it over his head, to convince himself he 
 was not deceived, upon which the old man 
 dropped his load, and fled precipitately. 
 
 Oakley stopped one instant to examine what 
 appeared to be a strong box, probably containing 
 valuables, and then followed the fugitive. But 
 his ignorance of the intricate turnings of the 
 passages favoured the flight of the other, and 
 after pursuing him in vain for some time, his 
 attention was attracted by a noise which sounded
 
 YES AND NO. 93 
 
 like the animating applause of a theatre, and a 
 moment afterwards many voices joined in the 
 jocmid chorus of " Life's a Bumper." 
 
 " Wretches," thought Oakley, '* well may 
 your insulted master have been impatient to quit 
 a world of which he saw around him such sam- 
 ples. That the very hands which had but just 
 been permitted to close his eyes, should within 
 that hour turn to plunder — and that those menials 
 who had been gorged with his bounty, should 
 profane his last moments with their orgies !" 
 
 Hurrying back towards his uncle's chamber, 
 he paused on the threshold, as if unwilling 
 to suffer the offensive sounds of mirth to pene- 
 trate within — though the loudest uproar could 
 no lono;er disturb its unconscious inmate ; but 
 nothino- now met his ear, save the more con- 
 o-enial murmur of the evenino- breeze. Thus 
 re-assured, he entered boldly, and felt refreshed
 
 94 VES AND NO. 
 
 by the calm and solemn sympathy of the still 
 summer's evening. 
 
 In all the feeUno;s which had been excited 
 by the events he had latterly witnessed, he 
 had been actuated entirely by impulse : he 
 adopted as indisputable all the facts stated by 
 Lord Rockington, without considering how much 
 might be grounded on prejudice, and coloured 
 by disappointment. In the disgusting scenes 
 which he had afterwards witnessed, he would 
 not have admitted it as possible that the cha- 
 racter and conduct of the master might a little 
 palliate the brutaUty of the servants. 
 
 By this pre-determined canonization of Lord 
 Rockington as a martyr, his own mortified 
 vanity felt consoled. It has been said that he 
 was from natural temperament peculiarly prone 
 to suspicion, and susceptible to slight — and if in 
 the unmerited fall of one formerly so celebrated as 
 Lord Rockington, he had a proof of the caprice
 
 YES AND NO. 95 
 
 and falsehood of the world, it at once confirmed 
 him in what he was disposed to think of others, 
 and consoled him for what they might think of 
 him. 
 
 " It will now," thought he, " be mine to 
 avoid, and theirs to court — yes, I shall now 
 have it in my power to repay envy with scorn !" 
 
 The next morning brought Oakley's own ser- 
 vant, who had been sent to follow him, and 
 Oakley lost no time in giving a summary dis- 
 missal to all the establishment of the late lord, 
 of whose untimely and offensive mirth he had 
 been an unintentional witness. He also des- 
 patched a messenger to , to summon 
 
 Lord Rockington's man of business, who in due 
 time arrived, in the person of Mr. Macdeed, the 
 principal solicitor of the county town. 
 
 This worthy gentleman, as he jolted along in 
 the identical chaise which had brought Oakley, 
 consoled himself with the anticipation of an
 
 96 YES AND NO. 
 
 accession of business arising from the change 
 of cUents consequent upon the late demise, for 
 Lord Rockington had not been habitually hti- 
 gious, though much of Mr. Macdeed's celebrity 
 had been owing to his conduct of the famous 
 cause of" Rockington versus Latimer," by which 
 he had secured to the plaintiff the accession of 
 a property which could never pay him twelve- 
 pence, only at the expense of about as much as 
 would have paid twelve months salary to the 
 twelve judges. 
 
 So striking a proof of how well he understood 
 his business, had at once obtained him profes- 
 sional pre-eminence in the county. The con- 
 sciousness of this sort of decided superiority in 
 a particular line, makes some men soleum and 
 pompous, but Mr. Macdeed it had only made 
 facetious and familiar, by far the most objection- 
 able effect of the two, to a man in Oakley's 
 present frame of mind.
 
 YES AND NO. 97 
 
 In spite, however, of the forbidding frowns 
 of his auditor, Mr. Macdeed wasted upon him 
 much stiff parchment-hke sort of pleasantry, 
 the rough draft of which had previously met 
 with the approbation of the most fastidious 
 tea-tables at the county town aforesaid. He 
 was particularly lively upon the subject of the 
 singularities of his late client. This was an 
 impertinence which, least of all, Oakley could 
 bear. He had risen that mornins: with an in- 
 violable respect for the memory of his benefac- 
 tor, and a fixed determination to follow his 
 example in hating all whom he had left behind 
 him in the world. It was no great trial of the 
 consistency of his general hatred of mankind, 
 that the only object which crossed his path, 
 should be an obnoxious attorney ; but the dis- 
 like which was as yet concentrated in him, 
 might soon have spread over no small circle 
 of acquaintance. Abruptly interrupting him, he 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 98 YES AND NO. 
 
 commanded him to proceed at once to business, 
 and that, too, in a tone sensibly wounding Mr. 
 Macdeed's self-importance, which was not the 
 less thin-skinned because dressed in smiles. 
 
 The will was found in that identical box 
 which Oakley had accidentally rescued from 
 the hand of Lord Rockington's old servant, 
 who was a subscribing witness, and who had 
 therefore seen it deposited there — and the 
 ghmpse he then caught of the other valuables 
 in it, (many thousand pounds worth of jewels,) 
 had probably excited his cupidity. 
 
 The disposition of the property was concise 
 and characteristic. There were no legacies ; 
 and every thing, without reserve, was left to 
 Oakley. This being ascertained, Mr. Macdeed 
 was summarily dismissed with a want of cour- 
 tesy which aggravated the offence already 
 given, and of which Oakley afterwards felt the 
 effects.
 
 YES AND NO. 99 
 
 In the arrangements Oakley made for the 
 funeral, he thought he best consulted the feel- 
 ings of the deceased by luniting the display of 
 fictitious and assumed grief to those only whose 
 aid was absolutely necessary to remove the body 
 to its last place of rest; forbidding the pre- 
 sence of any one in the character of mourner 
 but himself. In the meantime, having written 
 to Germain alone, to announce the death of 
 their uncle, and the change in his circumstances, 
 he occupied himself with solitary rambles in the 
 picturesque wilds around the castle, mistaking, 
 however, the source of the pleasure he derived 
 from this, and attributing to satisfaction at the 
 absence of all traces of man's corroding pre- 
 sence, the sensations which arose merely from a 
 strong susceptibility to the beauties of nature. 
 
 f2
 
 100 YES AND T«JO. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 At first 
 
 I stuck my choice npon her, ere my heart 
 Durst make too bold a herald of my tongue : 
 Where the impression of mine eye enfixing, 
 Contempt his scornful perspective did lend me, 
 Which warp'd the line of every other favour ; 
 Scorn'd a fair colour, or express'd it stol'n ; 
 Extended or contracted all proportions 
 To a most hideous object. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 Germain and Fitzalbert remained some time 
 at , not knowing exactly where to trans- 
 port themselves. Most of the friends of the lat- 
 ter, of whose hospitality he meant to avail himself 
 durins: the dead months, had not yet esta- 
 blished themselves in their country quarters. 
 Fitzalbert now passed all his mornings in bed.
 
 YES AND NO. 101 
 
 having a happy facility of sleeping in the ab- 
 sence of every other amusement, and this he 
 enjoyed in spite of the situation of his bed, 
 which was so near the window that he could, 
 from his pillow, command the whole range of 
 bathing-machines, and might, if he pleased, 
 trace the entrance of the well-flounced petti- 
 coat at one door, and the exit of the somewhat 
 tighter fitting bathing-dress at the other. 
 
 Germain, who was habitually an early riser, 
 determined to avail himself of this indepen- 
 dence of the companionship of his friend, to 
 ease his conscience of the promised visit to 
 the Dormers. 
 
 Of all the minor social sins, none entails so 
 acute a sense of shame as a past and repented-of 
 flirtation — and it was with very uncomfortable 
 feelings of guilty embarrassment, that Germain 
 approached the lodging of his former mistress, 
 to whom he had once paid attentions so assi-
 
 102 YES AND NO. 
 
 duous. Not but that he must be acquitted of 
 any legal offence : he never had involved him- 
 self in any engagement, or even committed him- 
 self by a declaration — he had never indeed been 
 guilty of any thing more definite and positive 
 than exchanging awkward and sheepish looks 
 across the pew, when her father published the 
 Sunday's banns. However, the apothecary's 
 wife had long settled that the parson's pupil 
 and his daughter would make a sweet pair, 
 and were likely to have a fine family ; and the 
 attorney's lady hinted that Mr. Dormer knew 
 where good settlements were to be had. 
 
 There were many local associations about the 
 place, where they had formerly met, which had 
 conspired to excite Germain's tender feelings. 
 The parsonage itself was pretty and pastoral — 
 with the early morning his eye would wander 
 from his book to follow the form of Fanny, 
 watering the rose-beds under his window ; and
 
 YES AND NO. 103 
 
 after the studies of the day, they used to drink 
 tea together in a woodbine arbour. Add to all 
 this, that he was but eighteen ; and if there ever 
 was a youth of that age who could resist the 
 perpetual propinquity of a liquid blue eye, 
 and a fair fresh skin, he is a monster whom 
 the whole sex will have given up in despair 
 before he is five-and-twenty. 
 
 But three years had since elapsed, and 
 in the meantime Germain's mind had been as 
 much enlarged as Fanny Dormer's person. 
 The place of meeting, too, instead of reviving 
 the charm of consistent propriety, was incon- 
 gruous and inconvenient ; and whilst waiting in 
 the narrow passage of the paper-built lodging;- 
 house, it was in vain that he endeavoured to 
 fortify himself with souvenirs of beds of roses 
 and woodbine bowers, against the over-powering 
 smell of fried sole which arose from the intru- 
 sive kitchen below. The small side parlour
 
 104 YES AND NO. 
 
 into which he was shown, and into which were 
 crowded Mr. Dormer, Fanny, and her multitu- 
 dinous occupations, presented the appearance of 
 confusion without comfort. Mr. Dormer was 
 stuck in an easy chair in one corner — his at- 
 tention agreeably divided between his lumbago 
 and the county paper. 
 
 There was nothing extraordinary in Fanny's 
 reception of her visitor; but as Germain's eye 
 fell upon the out-stretched hand which accom- 
 panied the greeting, he remarked that her 
 fingers (unhke Aurora's) were tipped with 
 ink — no very singular consequence of writing 
 most of the morning, but one that would never 
 have been remarked by a lover. 
 
 •' I hope I don't interrupt you," said Germain. 
 
 " Always a welcome interruption," replied 
 Mr. Dormer ; " but you would be puzzled to 
 time your visit so as to find Fanny idle." 
 
 And, indeed, that indefatigable young lady^
 
 YES AND NO. 105 
 
 besides the usual allowance of scribbling, 
 which had produced the disfiguring effects upon 
 her fingers noted above, had been employed in 
 sorting Scotch pebbles and sand-stones, spread- 
 ing dried sea-weed, and was now engaged in 
 preparing sundry articles for a Ladies' Reposi- 
 tory — an ingenious establishment, for which 
 many ladies waste more money in purchasing 
 materials, than industrious work-women would 
 charge for the finished articles, in order to have 
 the pleasure of seeing charity distributed, and 
 the needy relieved, not in proportion as food is 
 wanted, but as fire-screens are fancied. To 
 this Fanny was a zealous but a thrifty contri- 
 butor, and she was now occupied in rounding 
 emery strawberries, the foliage of which was to 
 be formed of scraps of her light green cloth 
 pelisse. 
 
 Germain commenced the conversation by at- 
 tempting some awkward compliments upon her 
 
 f5
 
 106 
 
 YES AND NO. 
 
 notable pursuits, but as he felt himself in a 
 false position, he was relieved by Mr. Dormer's 
 addressing him. 
 
 " Upon my word, Mr. Germain, you do no 
 credit to your keep since you left us — you have 
 not fared so well in those meagre countries 
 where you have been, as you used to do, upon 
 my fattened cuyleys and seven years old moor- 
 mutton, and some of Fanny's firmity for supper." 
 
 The fact was, that the mode of life Germain 
 had been lately leading at Paris, was not near 
 so much calculated for the promotion of " too 
 solid flesh," as the vegetating state of existence 
 at Rosedale Rectory, where even sentiment was 
 rather soporific. 
 
 " I suppose," continued Mr. Dormer, '* that 
 they half starved you in those Catholic countries 
 with their fast days." 
 
 But Germain protesting that he never had 
 suffered any positive privation, Mr. Dormer,
 
 YES AND NO. 107 
 
 by a natural transition from body to soul, turned 
 to the other subject, almost as constantly in his 
 mind ; and after folding in an important man- 
 ner the newspaper he held in his hand, he 
 began. 
 
 " Pray, Mr. Germain, might I ask whether 
 in those popish parts you have lately visited, 
 you were ever unfortunate enough to be present 
 at any of those sacrifices to superstition — those 
 auto-da-fes— those burnings of heretics?" 
 
 " No, indeed," rephed Germain, rather sur- 
 prised : " nor was I aware that any events of 
 the kind had taken place within the memory 
 of man. This is the first I ever heard of it." 
 
 " I am sorry, my young friend," rejoined 
 Mr. Dormer, with an air of reproach, " to find 
 that you have made so little use of your time — 
 that you have not been a more observant tra- 
 veller."
 
 108 YES AND NO. 
 
 Then again nnfolding the county paper^ he 
 read aloud, with earnest emphasis, the words 
 in itahcs. 
 
 " Characteristics of Catholicism — Burning 
 of a Jeio. It is, we are proud to say, not a 
 httle owing; to our unceasino- efforts in the 
 good Protestant cause, that these burning piles 
 are seen only as a warning beacon from afar — 
 that the flames are not now kindled in Smith- 
 field, or the crackling faggots heard in the 
 market-place beneath our own office-window. 
 For if such is the treatment of the papists to- 
 wards an unoffending Israelite, what might we 
 expect, if they had the power, towards the ob- 
 jects of their unceasing detestation — the loyal 
 Protestants of these most religious realms'! 
 Yet there are amongst us those infatuated 
 enough to wish to open wide our doors to them. 
 What doors? and to whom? — why the very
 
 YES AND NO. 109 
 
 doors of those two houses of parliament which, 
 never let it be forgotten, they conspired to 
 blow to atoms with their hellish popish plot." 
 
 Germain, perceiving- that his worthy friend 
 was not in a state of mind for serious arjru- 
 ment, simply asked : " Do you think, sir, the 
 Catholics would be so much more likely to 
 blow up the parliament, if they had seats in 
 it themselves ?" 
 
 " God forbid we should ever try !" ejaculated 
 the Rev. Mr. Dormer ; in which short question 
 and answer is contained the epitome of the 
 arguments on either side, which are sometimes 
 diluted into many successive nights' debate on 
 this somewhat threadbare subject. 
 
 " But come, Mr. Germain," said Mr. Dor- 
 mer, after a pause, " music has charms, and 
 Fanny shall delight you with * Home, sweet 
 Home.'" Accordingly Fanny posted herself
 
 110 YES AND NO. 
 
 obediently at a jingling upright piano-forte, 
 and began. 
 
 It is a penalty upon the popularity of a 
 piece of music in England, that in six months 
 every hand-organist grinds it, and every ostler 
 whistles it ; and the attraction which in this 
 instance it originally owed to one person alone, 
 is perpetually weakened by its being screamed 
 or slurred over by every young lady who has a 
 single note in her voice, and most of those who 
 have none. 
 
 " It is not so much," said Mr. Dormer, 
 " Fanny's musical talent, as that she sings 
 it with so much depth of true domestic feel- 
 mg. 
 
 Germain bowed an extorted assent to the 
 paternal pufF, and repeated mechanically, " So 
 much depth of true domestic feeling." 
 
 The extremes of art and nature sometimes
 
 YES AND NO. HI 
 
 touch each other, and even Lady Flaniborough, 
 with all her manoeuvring, could not have at- 
 tempted a more home thrust, as a maternal 
 manager, than Mr. Dormer, in the simplicity of 
 his heart, gave utterance to, in this mere ebul- 
 lition of natural affection. But Germain was 
 at present proof against the remaining charms 
 of Fanny Dormer — he felt triply armed against 
 a relapse by the consciousness of a vast foot, 
 thick waist, and inky fingers ; and not a little 
 ashamed of his former weakness, he brouoht his 
 visit to an abrupt conclusion. 
 
 Upon Germain's return to his lodgings, he 
 found Oakley's letter, announcing the death of 
 their uncle; but as this letter had followed him 
 from place to place, resting by the way at sun- 
 dry country post-offices, it did not forestall 
 the regular notice of the event in the London 
 papers. 
 
 Germain was not a little surprised at Oakley's
 
 112 YES AND NO. 
 
 dwelling much more, in the first part of his 
 letter, upon the loss he had sustained in the 
 death of a relation he had never known, than 
 upon the acquisition of a fortune which he had 
 always expected. From this turning to the con- 
 cerns of his friend, Oakley continued — 
 
 " I can assure you, my dear Germain, that 
 neither this important change in my own for- 
 tune, nor the agitation of the unexpected event 
 which caused it, has prevented me from re- 
 flecting much and seriously on your future 
 prospects, such as I think I am able to foresee 
 them, from the insight that long intimacy has 
 given me into your disposition, and however 
 unwelcome to you it may be, I cannot but re- 
 peat, that the unhappy facility of your temper 
 which renders it an impossibility to you to say, 
 ' No,' will open your purse to every sharper, 
 and surrender your heart to the first flirt you 
 meet. This last is a danger, however, against
 
 YES AND NO. 113 
 
 which it is quite out of my province to guard 
 you ; but as to the first, though I cannot pre- 
 vent it, I may postpone its evil consequences 
 to you ; and as you are always in want of 
 money, and I have now more than I shall ever 
 know what to do with, I have desired my 
 banker, without limitation, to answer your 
 drafts." 
 
 *' Generous fellow ! his conclusion is admi- 
 rable, though his reasoning is somewhat de- 
 fective," thought Germain, calhng to mind, with 
 consolatory consciousness, what had passed 
 since they parted, and that he had escaped 
 being either Fitzalbert's dupe, or Fanny Dor- 
 mer's victim. 
 
 He found Fitzalbert still en robe de cl/atti- 
 bre, at the breakfast-table, over muffins and 
 shrimps. 
 
 " Nothing in the newspaper," said he; I 
 have just finished it. Let me see ; ' Mar-
 
 114 YES AND NO. 
 
 riages.— Mr. John Smith to Miss Jane Brown, 
 both of this town.'— Important. ' Birth.— At 
 Little Warren, the lady of the Rev. Peter 
 Parsley was brought to bed of twins, being her 
 nineteenth and twentieth.'— More inconvenient 
 to the Rev. Peter Parsley than interesting to 
 us. But, what is this ?— ' Died, on Thursday 
 last, at Rockington Castle, George James, Lord 
 Viscount Rockington J— by his lordship's de- 
 mise, the ancient title becomes extinct, but all 
 his ample fortunes descend to his nephew, 
 Ernest Oakley, Esq.' Did you know this, 
 Germain ?" 
 
 " I have just heard from Oakley, announcing 
 the event." 
 
 " Oakley! well, I wish it had been you. — 
 I hope, however, he will make a proper use of 
 it. By the bye. Bechamel is now out of place : 
 he should write about him ; he is quite a 
 cordon bleu for the first course ; and thouo;h he
 
 YES ANJ) NO. 115 
 
 knows nothing about patisserie, of course 
 Oakley will have a confectioner." 
 
 " All in good time," said Germain ; " he 
 writes me word that he is about to leave Rock- 
 ington Castle for his other place, Goldsborough 
 Park, where he is wanted on business, by the 
 late Lord Rockington's agent for that property. 
 I think I shall go over and see him there." 
 
 " I can drop you then, at the park-gate ; 
 for I have received a very pressing summons 
 from Lady Bore ton, to join the party she has 
 just collected. You must meet me again at 
 the Boretons: you are included in the invi- 
 tation, all in due form : ' Know your family 
 well ' — ' old friend of your mother's ;' — and so 
 forth." 
 
 Germain, to whom a long ttte-d-ttte with 
 Oakley in his present temper, had few attrac- 
 tions, and who was also anxious as soon as
 
 116 YES AND NO. 
 
 possible to establish himself in the world, caught 
 readily at this proposal of Fitzalbert's. 
 
 " Will there," said he, " be a large party at 
 the Boretons?" 
 
 " Of that you may always feel yourself 
 pretty sure ; a little mixed, sometimes ; but I 
 own that is no great objection to me — my taste 
 is become so depraved that I rather relish a 
 tiger. From long usage, the regular routine 
 of the exclusives appears to me, ' weary, flat,' 
 et cetera. More than I envy Oakley the ful- 
 ness of his purse, do I envy you the freshness 
 of your feelings. For after all, of what use 
 are riches but as the capital with which to 
 purchase pleasure — the real free-trade which 
 is all over at five-and-twenty ? Then are our 
 ports honestly open for the reception of every 
 ao-reeable sensation from without, but after 
 that we are subject to all the drawbacks of our
 
 YES AND NO. 117 
 
 artificial situation, and fastidiousness is the pro- 
 tecting duty with which we starve our senses." 
 
 Germain, who had never heard Fitzalbert ut- 
 ter a serious sentence before, was rather puzzled 
 to know whether he was quizzing or not. To 
 avoid the awkwardness of mistaking his vein, 
 he asked him : " Of what species are the 
 tigers we are to meet at Lady Boreton's — phy- 
 sical or intellectual— bucks or bores?" 
 
 " Principally the latter, for her ladyship is 
 rather blue, and has generally some hangers-on 
 who dabble in literature, or skim the surface of 
 science. But don't be alarmed — you will also 
 meet Lady Latimer and her two unmarried 
 sisters — and these among them secure the at- 
 tendance of all the best men, whether marrying 
 or otherwise, who can get themselves invited. 
 What would I give that Lady Latimer should 
 be as new to me as she is to you ! Gladly would 
 I suffer, as you will, from the first fear of her
 
 118 YES AND NO. 
 
 frowns, to be rewarded with a faint hope of her 
 smiles — but, alas ! we have long settled for life 
 into easy intimacy and friendly indifference. I 
 am on this, as on every thing else — perfectly blast. 
 Why is that phrase as exclusively French as the 
 feeling is English ? It is long since any thing 
 to my taste has seemed fresh, except, indeed, 
 these shrimps," added he, changing his tone 
 suddenly, and adding another to the hecatomb 
 of shells which crowded his plate; after which 
 he rose from the breakfast-table, and they made 
 arrangements for their departure on the morrow 
 for Boreton Park, where Germain was to join 
 Fitzalbert, after having spent a night by the 
 way with his friend Oakley. 
 
 Lest the reader, however, should have as great 
 a dread as Germain himself of a tete-d'tcte with 
 Oakley in his present gloomy temper, we will 
 not intrude beyond the park-gate where Fitz- 
 albert deposited his fellow-traveller with, " By
 
 YES AND NO, 119 
 
 the bye, Germain, you may as well see if you 
 can do any thing with Oakley about an ex- 
 change of that property which joins Latimer 
 Moors— you may remember I showed it to you 
 at a distance, from the top of that hill when 
 I brought down both those two old birds you 
 had just missed."
 
 120 YES AND NO. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The catastrophe is a nuptial. On whose side ? 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 "Who do you think is coming here to-day?" 
 said Lady Flamborough to her two daughters, 
 as she retired with them to her dressing-room, 
 the party dispersing after breakfast at Boreton 
 Park. 
 
 The young ladies were well aware, from long 
 experience of their mother's manner, that this 
 could only apply to an unmarried, and yet a
 
 YES AND NO. 121 
 
 marrying man, and Lady Caroline therefore 
 promptly replied — 
 
 " I suppose, mamma, you mean Mr. Germain 
 — Mr. Fitzalbert told me you expected him." 
 
 " Yes, my dear ; I remember him a very pretty 
 little boy when I last saw him with his mother, 
 soon after Mr. Germain's death. It was a shock- 
 ing thing, to be sure, to be left an orphan so 
 young ; but the long minority must have much 
 improved his property, and there is nothing so 
 desirable in a young man as ready money for an 
 outfit." 
 
 " But, mamma," said Lady Jane, " Major 
 Sumner told me that he knew for certain that 
 Mr. Germain had spent all his ready money." 
 
 " I don't know," replied Lady Flamborough 
 rather sharply, " what right Major Sumner has 
 to tell you any thing ; but I must tell you, the 
 encouragement you give to such a man must be 
 very disadvantageous to you." 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 122 YES AND NO. 
 
 " Eeall}'-, mamma, I am not aware of ever hav 
 ing given Major Sumner any reason to suppose 
 that I encouraged his attentions. Our neigh- 
 bourhood at dinner here is purely accidental. 
 You might as well attack Caroline for sitting 
 next Mr. Fitzalbert." 
 
 " That is quite a different case," said Lady 
 Flamborough, " Mr. Fitzalbert is a privileged 
 person, for he is known never to speak to a girl, 
 unless a dowager is the only alternative. But 
 no young lady ought ever to talk twice to a man 
 who seems to take pleasure in her society, unless 
 she knows him to be eligible. And as for Major 
 Sumner, he has the most sighing swain-like 
 manner I ever beheld. He asks you to drink a 
 glass of wine as if he were uttering a sentiment, 
 and hands you to dinner as if he were leading 
 vou to the altar." 
 
 " Well, mamma," answered Lady Jane, "you 
 have often com])lained of my inattention in not
 
 YES AND NO, 123 
 
 following your advice, but you will not have to 
 reproach me with disobedience, if you never 
 enjoin any thing more difficult than the avoid- 
 ing Major Sumner; for, to tell you the truth, 
 he bores me uncommonly." 
 
 '* To be sure he does. I was certain you had 
 too much good taste to like him : but that 
 wouldn't stop that old gossip Lady Diana Grif- 
 fin's pen. She was allowed to walk out alone 
 to dinner yesterday, which of course called her 
 attention to who sat next whom ; and whilst she 
 reposed in solitary state, with the vacant places 
 for the absent Banquos left on each side of her, 
 I observed her eyes fixed across the table upon 
 the long chin of Major Sumner, which was much 
 oftener protruded perpendicularly over your plate 
 than his own ; and this morning, as I went to 
 breakfast, I saw six letters in her formidably 
 legible hand- writing waiting for stray franks." 
 
 g2
 
 124 YES AND NO. 
 
 " Eut I think I can defy even her ingenuity 
 to extract an incident out of our dull dinner." 
 
 " Perhaps so ; but I cannot too often recom- 
 mend caution to you both as to encouraging 
 disadvantageous danglers in a country-house. 
 It is twice as dangerous as a London season. 
 There, some kind friend is sure to bring one the 
 first unpleasant remark hot from the club-win- 
 dow where it was cooked, and one can take 
 measures accordingly ; but here, a report is 
 shuttlecocked backwards and forwards for six 
 months before one hears it, gaining fresh strength 
 every time it passes through the post-oflSce, till 
 at last a young lady is set down as behaving 
 very ill to some beggar who has been accident^ 
 ally thrown in her way. It is rather a dan- 
 gerous experiment to get yourself talked about 
 for the man you really mean to marry. It is 
 purely mischievous to be buzzed about with an 
 exceptionable. If it was for no other reason.
 
 YES AND NO. 12 
 
 O 
 
 that every recorded flirtation, however tran- 
 sient, is, unjustly or not, reckoned as a year 
 added to a young lady's age." 
 
 " 1 dare say you are quite right, mamma," 
 said Lady Caroline, who feeling that the lec- 
 ture was now no longer confined to her sister, 
 thought it as well to come to her assistance, 
 and at the same time, confine the conversa- 
 tion to the specific charge ; " but, with regard 
 to Major Sumner's attention to Jane, you must 
 recollect, that as soon as ever Miss Luton be- 
 gan to play her eternal concerto, that identical 
 long chin, which you accuse of having hung per- 
 pendicularly over Jane's plate, was nailed to 
 the sounding board ; and there the Major sat 
 in fixed admiration, through all its endless 
 rondos." 
 
 " Ay," answered Lady Flamborough, " that 
 is a great mistake of poor Mrs. Luton's ; she 
 is one of the old school. That indiscriminating
 
 126 YES AND NO. 
 
 desire to display a daughter's talents, is justly 
 out of date. Young ladies have not fascina- 
 tion at their fingers' ends, as mothers and 
 music-masters have long conspired to persuade 
 the world. Besides, men, with all their boasted 
 superiority, are such vain weak creatures, that 
 they are always easier caught by admiration 
 paid than demanded. You will be able to find 
 out what Mr. Germain's tastes and pursuits 
 are, and then it will be time enough to dis- 
 play yours, if you find that they don't clash." 
 
 " But why, mamma, should you settle it 
 at once, as a matter of course, that there should 
 be such reciprocal attraction between Mr. Ger- 
 main and me?" asked Lady Jane; " I never 
 saw him, and he probably never heard of me." 
 
 " That's the very reason," answered Lady 
 Flamborough, " that I expect something to 
 come of your present meeting. You will be for 
 some time boxed up here together. He has
 
 YES AND NO. 127 
 
 never been out in London ; and, without making 
 you vain, there is not much here to distract 
 his attention. If this general election takes 
 place, we shall probably see his friend Mr. 
 Oakley here, as his interest is the same as that 
 of the Boretons. He, from what I 've heard, is 
 more difficult to manage, but very good-look- 
 ing, and enormously rich. He would just suit 
 Caroline : and his property joins Lord Lati- 
 mer's — it would be the very thing for Louisa." 
 
 " I doubt, mamma, whether Louisa would 
 think it the very thing for her, that her next 
 neighbour, a gay young man, should settle at 
 once into a humdrum Benedict, and a brother- 
 in-law into the baro;ain." 
 
 " That puts me in mind," returned Lady 
 Flamborough, " to tell you how much shocked 
 I was the other day, to hear you, in a mixed 
 society, allude to Louisa's flirtations; for though 
 she only exacts so much individual attention as
 
 128 YES AND NO. 
 
 is necessary to make up the sum of general 
 admiration, which, as a reigning beauty, is un- 
 doubtedly her due, yet it is a subject upon 
 which any young lady, and more particularly 
 a sister, had better affect utter unconscious- 
 ness. At the same time, if Mr. Germain ad- 
 mires you, Jane, as I expect he will, make it 
 obvious before Louisa comes, for she certainly 
 sometimes does seem to take a pleasure in 
 making a snatch at loosely hung chains." 
 
 A summons to luncheon here interrupted the 
 maternal lecture. 
 
 " What do you mean to do afterwards?" 
 asked Lady Flamborough. 
 
 " Caroline is going to ride," answered Lady 
 Jane ; " and I mean to walk with Miss Luton 
 through the park, as far as the north lodge." 
 
 " The north lodge," said Lady Flamborough, 
 "just so; the road from Goldsborough Park 
 comes through the north lodge ; and you never
 
 YES AND NO. 1"29 
 
 look so well as when walking," added she, cast- 
 ing first an approving glance at the fine form 
 of her daughter, and then rather an anxious 
 one at her pale cheek, on which the healthy hue 
 of exercise would, no doubt, effect improvement. 
 
 But this morning, the roses on Lady Jane's 
 cheek were doomed to bloom unseen, for Ger- 
 main intentionally protracted his arrival till 
 dusk, thinking the dressing-hour the most con- 
 venient opportunity for dropping into the mid- 
 dle of a large party of people, among whom he 
 knew hardly a creature. 
 
 His youth and inexperience will sufficiently 
 account for his feehng a little shy before he 
 was duly amalgamated ; for the most self-pos- 
 sessed can hardly help experiencing an uncom- 
 fortable sensation of insufficiency, when endea- 
 vouring in vain to catch, as it is bandied before 
 him, the tone of a society to which he alone is 
 
 strange. 
 
 G 5
 
 130 YES AND NO. 
 
 As Germain stood for a moment with the 
 liandle of the drawing-room door in his hand, 
 before lie could decide upon opening- it, that 
 act was involuntarily accelerated, by hearing 
 voices descending the stairs behind him, and 
 he found himself in a blaze of light; and, 
 among a confused mass of heads, distinguished 
 his friend Fitzalbert, who, advancing to meet 
 liim, presented him in due form to his hostess. 
 Lady Boreton. Her ladyship overloaded her 
 new acquaintance with civilities ; she was ex- 
 cessively voluble, and it was difficult to remem- 
 ber much of her communications : which arose 
 more from the redundancy than the paucity 
 of matter they contained. 
 
 She introduced Germain in succession to each 
 of her other guests, who happened to pass near 
 them, following up each presentation with a lit- 
 tle " aside," meant to put her new visiter aiifait 
 of the various characters and pursuits of the
 
 YES AND NO. 131 
 
 motley assemblage. But either her definitions 
 were not distinct enough, or his faculties were 
 too much embarrassed to enable him to retain 
 their separate identity ; and when Lady Boreton 
 was summoned away to some new object of at- 
 tention, Germain retained only a confused con- 
 sciousness, that there were among the un- 
 known faces, that surrounded him, captains 
 that had been to the North Pole ; chemists, who 
 could extract ice from caloric ; transatlantic tra- 
 vellers, and sedentary bookworms ; some authors, 
 who owned to anonymous publications they had 
 never written ; and others, who were suspect- 
 ed of those they denied ; besides the usual 
 quantum of young ladies and gentlemen, who 
 rested their claims to distinction upon the tra- 
 ditionary deeds of their great-grandfathers. 
 
 One little man, in particular, whom he could 
 not make out at all, attracted Germain's atten- 
 tion ; he fidgetted about Lady Boreton whilst
 
 132 YES AND NO. 
 
 she was talking to him, but she, instead of in- 
 troducing and defining him hke the rest, only- 
 told him to ring the bell. When Germain was 
 left to himself, and therefore could attend to 
 what was going on around him, he saw this 
 little man attempt in vain to insinuate himself 
 into two or three of the little groupes that were 
 dotted about the room, and uniformly repulsed 
 in the same way as he had been by Lady Bore- 
 ton. At last he came uj) to Germain himself, 
 who was standing alone, and asked him if he 
 had ever been in that part of the country be- 
 fore. Germain, with true English reserve, felt 
 half offended at what he thought an imperti- 
 nence in a person to whom he had not been 
 introduced, and was inchned to answer him 
 shortly, when Fitzalbert coming up, shivering, 
 and saying rather sharply, " those doors 
 
 haven't an idea of shutting," the little man 
 flew to shut them, and Germain was on the
 
 YES AND NO. 133 
 
 point of asking his friend whether he was the 
 culprit architect, when the mystery was ex- 
 plained by Lady Boreton crying out, in the 
 highest key of her voice : — " Sir John, dinner 
 is ready ;" and then the little man, having just 
 shut one door, was seen sneaking out of the 
 other with the lady of the highest rank upon his 
 arm. 
 
 Germain afterwards found that poor Sir John 
 was considered a nonentity alike by those who 
 stood behind the chairs, and those who sat 
 around his table. Lady Boreton's masculine 
 mind comprehended equally political principles 
 and domestic details, whilst Sir John's depart- 
 ment was confined to signing deeds and help- 
 ing soup. 
 
 Germain having drawn back to allow those 
 who assumed either precedence on their own 
 parts, or partiality on that of the ladies, to pass 
 two and two before him, followed among the
 
 134 YES AND NO. 
 
 mass of men who brought up the rear, and 
 would probably have been condemned to sit 
 between two strangers, had not Fitzalbert 
 made him a sign to take a vacant place on the 
 other side of the lady whom he had escorted. 
 
 In availing himself of this hint, Germain 
 had only time to cast a transient glance at a 
 finely-shaped profile, and a prettily turned 
 figure, when Fitzalbert interrupted his survey 
 by saying, " Lady Jane, you must allow me to 
 make you acquainted with my friend, Mr. 
 Germain." 
 
 A slio-ht acknowledgment was all that 
 immediately followed this fortuitous introduc- 
 tion, but it lighted up for a moment Lady 
 Flamborough's watchful countenance, even 
 though she was herself suffering under a se- 
 vere dose of one of the most unrelenting bores 
 that ever infested society. 
 
 " It is always as well liere to know who
 
 YES AND NO. 135 
 
 one's next neisihbour is," continued Fitz- 
 albert; "for this is not one of those snug 
 parties where one can do or say what one 
 pleases without observation." 
 
 " How do you mean?" asked Germain. 
 
 ** Why, Lady Boreton encourages these 
 literary poachers on the manors, or rather maii- 
 ners of high life ; she gives a sort of right of 
 free chase to all cockney sportsmen to wing- 
 one's follies in a double-barrelled duodecimo, 
 
 or hunt one's eccentricities through a hot- 
 pressed octavo. Not that they are, generally 
 speaking, very formidable shots — they often 
 bring down a different bird from the one they 
 aimed at, and sometimes shut their eyes and 
 blaze away at the whole covey ; which last is, 
 after all, the best way. Their coming here to 
 pick out individuals is needless trouble. Do 
 you know the modern recipe for a finished pic- 
 ture of fashionable life? Let a gentleman/y
 
 136 YESANDNO. 
 
 man, with a gentleman/y style, take of foolscap 
 paper a few quires ; stuff thera well with high- 
 sounding titles — dukes and duchesses, lords and 
 ladies, ad lihilum. Then open the Peerage at 
 random, pick a supposititious author out of one 
 page of it, and fix the imaginary characters 
 upon some of the rest ; mix it all up with quan- 
 tum suff. of puff, and the book is in a second 
 edition before ninety-nine readers out of a hun- 
 dred have found out the one is as little likely to 
 have written, as the others to have done what is 
 atributed to them." 
 
 ** How then can Lady Boreton's assistance 
 be of any consequence in a pursuit which 
 seems as free as air?" asked Germain. 
 
 *' Oh ! here at least they have an oppor- 
 tunity of observing the cut of one's coat, and 
 the colour of one's hair. For instance : that 
 young gentleman opposite is a self-constituted 
 definer of fashion, in which character he has
 
 YES AND NO. 137 
 
 not only already recorded that a fork, not 
 a knife, should be the active agent in carry- 
 ing food to the mouth, but has made some 
 more original discoveries, such as, that young 
 ladies should be dieted on the wings of boiled 
 chickens, and fine gentlemen should quaff 
 nought but hock and soda-water; that roast 
 beef is a vulgar horror, and beer an abomina- 
 tion. I will secure his rejection of me upon his 
 next conscription of the fashionable world. — 
 Some small beer, pray," added Fitzalbert, turning 
 round to the servant, and speaking in a pecu- 
 liarly decided tone of voice. " So sensitive a 
 soul must be much shocked at much he hears 
 and sees amongst great people " en domestique," 
 as he calls it ; by which, don't imagine he means 
 * High Life below Stairs.' I hope, however. 
 Lady Jane, that before he next hints a sketch 
 of your sister. Lady Latimer, he will have learnt 
 that she has not red hair, and does not habi- 
 tually exclaim, ' Good gracious!'"
 
 138 YES AND NO. 
 
 Fitzalbert was in high spirits ; and whilst 
 he thus went rattling on, necessarily engrossed 
 so much of the attention of both Germain and 
 Lady Jane, that the neighbourhood of the two 
 latter did not seem likely to have the beneficial 
 consequences at first anticipated by Lady Flam- 
 borough ; but the desired impression was never- 
 theless caught, whether naturally from acci- 
 dental affinity, or afterwards inoculated during 
 a long conversation with Lady Flamborough 
 herself, certain it is, that when Germain lio-hted 
 his flat candlestick for bed, the predominant 
 feeling in his mind was, that Lady Jane Sy- 
 denham was a remarkably nice girl.
 
 YES AND NO. 139 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 I shall forget to bave thee still stand here, 
 Remembering how I love thy company. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 The next morning's post brought a few lines 
 from Lady Latimer to Lady Boreton, announc- 
 ing her intended arrival to dinner that day. 
 The intercourse between the two families had 
 always been scrupulously maintained by tlie 
 regular alternation of prescribed visits ; and 
 the acceptance of the expected invitation al- 
 ways was received on both sides with great
 
 140 YES AND NO. 
 
 appearance of satisfaction. Not tliat much 
 pleasure was ever anticipated by either ; but 
 any fahing off in their reciprocal cordiality 
 would at once have threatened to disturb the 
 political peace of the county, which was only 
 maintained by a compromise between these two 
 great rival interests. 
 
 At the present moment, there were appear- 
 ances which threatened that this truce would 
 not be of much longer duration ; and, following 
 the example of more dignified diplomatists, 
 they redoubled the outward demonstrations of 
 mutual good understanding, as their fears 
 increased that future hostilities would be in- 
 evitable. These fears were, in this instance, 
 more sincere than is often the case with some 
 of their national prototypes, which arose pro- 
 bably from this difference in their situation, 
 that if they fought, it must be with their own 
 money, not the people's ; they would have to
 
 YES AND NO. 
 
 141 
 
 distribute, not to levy ; the gain might be pub- 
 Uc, but the cost would certainly be private. 
 
 However, at the next general election a 
 successor would have to be selected for Mr. 
 Medium, who had announced his intention of 
 then retiring, after having been for thirty years 
 received as an oracle by both parties, prin- 
 cipally from his own indecision of character. 
 He had not unfrequently carried the House 
 with him from the mere charm of inconsist- 
 ency, and been listened to as an orator from a 
 reputation for sincerity, which seemed chiefly 
 founded upon an earnest manner and indiffe- 
 rent English. Such as he was, though he 
 had been a convenient stop-gap, his general 
 leaning to Tory principles had satisfied Lord 
 Latimer, who was not an eager politician, and 
 his occasional effective opposition to ministers 
 had almost consoled Lady Boreton, who was a 
 red-hot liberal.
 
 142 YES AND NO. 
 
 Those most cogent reasons for keepin"- the 
 peace, whether of countries or counties — tlie 
 want of men and money, were both here in 
 full force. Lord Latimer had no younger bro- 
 ther to put forward to quicken liis political 
 feelings with the incitement of family distinc- 
 tion, and Lady Boreton could never attempt 
 to produce Sir John on the hustings. On both 
 sides too tlieir finances left no available sur- 
 plus after current expenses. Lady Boreton 's 
 anxiety to save the county from the disgrace 
 of being represented by two such Tories, had 
 induced her to turn her attention towards Oak- 
 ley, whose political feelings were supposed to 
 be liberal, and who, from his recently-acquired 
 great possessions, seemed to be the fittest per- 
 son to put forward. She was very anxious 
 to get him to her house, that she might 
 have an opportunity of sounding him upon the 
 subject, and she the more rejoiced at the su-
 
 YES AND NO. 143 
 
 per- civility which had induced her to invite 
 Lady Flamborough and her daughters to meet 
 Lady Latimer, as she had some vague hope 
 that the natural attraction between a great 
 party on the one side, and handsome girls on 
 the other, might be ripened into a state of 
 things, which might prevent so lukewarm a 
 politician as Lord Latimer from taking an ac- 
 tive part against Oakley. 
 
 " You are not yet acquainted with Lady 
 Latimer," said Lady Boreton to Germain, as 
 her eye once more glanced over the few careless 
 traces of that lady's pen, which wandered, sur- 
 rounded by roses and cupids, over the shining 
 surface of her smooth and scented note-paper. 
 
 " No, I never had the pleasure of seeing her," 
 replied Germain, " and shall be most happy in 
 this opportunity of meeting one, of whom all 
 who know her speak in raptures." 
 
 " Ob, certainly," said Lady Boreton, " a
 
 144 YES AND NO. 
 
 most delightful person ; a little, perhaps — " 
 added she, lowering her voice, " a little per- 
 haps spoilt by the world. You have seen Lady 
 Flamborough — well, you may imagine the sort 
 of education that she would give her daugh- 
 ters. Lady Latimer, with all her acknowledged 
 attractions, is singularly superficial, and wants 
 mind, poor thing ; and what, my dear Mr. Ger- 
 main, is social intercourse without mind ? — 
 Would you believe it, when I asked her to 
 
 attend Professor 's lectures with me, she 
 
 said, she was much obliged to me, but she 
 slept very well without them ; and when I wished 
 to introduce to her a friend of mine, who had 
 just written a beautiful book, she said — not 
 unless she could shut him up when she liked. 
 Depend upon it, you will find Lady Latimer 
 wants mind. Mr. Alley, I believe the lubo- 
 ratory is ready." 
 
 With this Lady Boreton, left Germain, who had
 
 YES AND NO. 145 
 
 not been so fascinated with what he had seen 
 of her, as not to receive with some reservation 
 of his own opinion, the disparaging account 
 she had given of Lady Latimer. 
 
 Strolling into the library in search of a book, 
 he met Lady Flamborough, who had been, she 
 said, to choose some drawings for the girls to 
 copy for her. 
 
 " You don't know Louisa — Lady Latimer, I 
 mean — do you, Mr. Germain?" said she. 
 
 Germain again replying in the negative, and 
 again repeating his desire to be able to answer 
 in the affirmative, she continued, whilst she 
 slowly turned over the contents of the portfolio 
 she had been seeking : — « Oh, of course you 
 may imagine, Mr. Germain, how gratifying to 
 a mother's feelings must be the universal ad- 
 miration she engrosses, and indeed even I 
 must be allowed to add it is her due. She is 
 reckoned very like Jane ; to be sure Madame 
 
 VOL I. H
 
 146 YES AND NO. 
 
 Maradin says, Jane has much the finest figure, 
 but then, Louisa is not so very young as her 
 sister is. I should say too, that Jane has the 
 most countenance, but then, perhaps, I am not 
 quite a fair judge — I may speak, you know, 
 from a mother's knowledge of their character, 
 but in my opinion, Jane's face shows the most 
 sensibihty of expression. If any thing, perhaps, 
 Louisa rather wants countenance. Here it 
 is — Guercino's Sybil. Good morning, Mr. 
 Germain." 
 
 The weather continuing threatening after 
 luncheon, the gentlemen guests of Boreton 
 Park, limited their afternoon's exercise to a 
 critical stroll through that part of the place 
 which was near the house. One friend of Sir 
 John's found out, that unless his hot-houses, 
 which had just been finished at an enormous 
 expense, were built upon quite a different prin- 
 ciple, they would never be fit to ripen even a
 
 YES AND NO. 147 
 
 crab-apple ; one that his thriving and extensive 
 plantations ought all to be cut down, or the 
 place would be too damp for any thing but 
 frogs ; another, that the house must be pulled 
 down, and rebuilt in the snug bottom by the 
 trout-stream ; one discovered that his new sta- 
 bles were not large enough for dog-kennels ; 
 another, that if he had the misfortune to possess 
 such a set of rips as tenanted them, he would 
 turn them all loose rather than that they should 
 cost him another feed of corn ; and, as the 
 mizzling rain drove them home, all agreed, 
 whilst they were ascending the broad and easy 
 steps under the shelter of the splendid portico, 
 which marked the centre of the extended facade, 
 that they would not live in such a dirty, damp, 
 dreary hole, if any body would give it to them. 
 As two long dusky hours yet remained before 
 dinner, and they had already settled the local 
 demerits of every thing by which they were sur- 
 
 H 2
 
 148 YES AND NO. 
 
 rounded, it was but natural that they should 
 next occupy themselves with the personal quali- 
 fications of those who were about to be added 
 to their number; and as Germain wandered 
 about the different corners of the spacious hall 
 in which they were assembled, various were the 
 little disparaging comments upon both Lord and 
 Lady Latimer which he heard ; and though 
 there were none of them of any great importance, 
 yet the avidity with which they were retailed, 
 seemed to him at variance with that deference 
 which he had always heard was paid to them 
 by the society collectively in which they moved ; 
 for he did not as yet know enough of the world 
 to be aware that though from any fashionable 
 pre-eminence which made a person conspicuous, 
 it naturally followed that he or she should be 
 often talked of, yet praise by no means followed 
 as a necessary consequence. 
 
 On one side, he heard that Latimer was an
 
 VES AND NO. 149 
 
 excellent fellow, but he certainly had done 
 some very odd things — it was a pity! one 
 knew for certain that Lady Latimer rouged ; 
 another was quite sure that her foot was not 
 so small as the far-famed one of a celebrated 
 actress. A httle further on he found Major 
 Sumner sentimentalizing upon " the unfeeling 
 manner in which she had behaved to his poor 
 friend Colonel Woodbine, who though a most 
 gallant officer, as brave as a lion in the field, 
 was of an unfortunately susceptible nature, and 
 after flirting desperately with him at Brighton, 
 she cruelly cut him when next they met. Poor 
 Woodbine!" added the major, " if it had not 
 been to get over the impression her conduct 
 made upon him, I don't think that he would 
 ever have gone upon the expedition which 
 proved fatal to him." 
 
 "Where did he go to?" asked Germain; 
 " the tropic or the polar regions?"
 
 150 YES AND NO. 
 
 " No," said Major Sumner, " he went duck- 
 shooting in the fens, and got his feet wet. Well, 
 depend upon it. Lady Latimer has no heart." 
 
 Except Germain, almost every body seemed 
 to have some anecdote of Lord or Lady Latimer 
 to contribute, derived from their personal know- 
 ledge of them. There were only two other per- 
 sons in the room, who, it was evident, were not 
 acquainted with either of them ; one was a 
 literary protege of Lady Boreton's, who had 
 lately written a novel in which a character of 
 Lady Latimer had been insinuated, and the other 
 was a friend of his, a periodical critic, who had 
 persuaded the world of the striking resemblance 
 the character bore to the orioinal. 
 
 Any further comments were interrupted by the 
 entrance of lights, which produced a challenge 
 from Fitzalbert to Germain to the billiard-table, 
 that stood in the centre of the spacious hall. 
 Germain did not hesitate on accepting the pro-
 
 YES AND NO. 151 
 
 posal, though his attention was still much oc- 
 cupied with all he had lately heard, and his 
 curiosity much excited to find out how far his 
 own impressions would confirm it. " Wants 
 mind — countenance — and heart," thought he, 
 whilst apparently engrossed in choosing his cue. 
 Germain played well at billiards ; Fitzalbert 
 perhaps rather better ; but this point had not 
 been decided even as far as the first game, and 
 there was still uncertainty enough about the 
 event, to give interest to the various little bets 
 that had been accumulating as they proceeded, 
 when the grinding of carriage-wheels through the 
 gravel announced an arrival, and the expected 
 guests were ushered in due form through the 
 front door. Germain involuntarily paused, even 
 in the act of taking aim at a dead hazard, in 
 spite of sundry requisitions from those around 
 him to " go on, go on ; I've backed you to do 
 this."
 
 152 YES AND NO. 
 
 Of all the sights and wonders of the world, 
 there is hardly any which one cannot so com- 
 pletely anticipate in idea, by the exertion of a 
 very ordinary share of imagination, as almost to 
 incur disappointment upon actual inspection. 
 To this general rule there is one brilliant excep- 
 tion. A perfectly beautiful woman when first 
 seen, is sure to present some charm which far 
 exceeds any pre-conceived expectation. Such 
 was the impression made upon Germain when 
 raising his head from the billiard-table he first 
 beheld Lady Latimer. She entered, followed 
 by Lord Latimer, and leading on the other side 
 a third and unexpected visitor, whose embar- 
 rassment she seemed to be endeavouring to les- 
 sen. So thoroughly was this third person pro- 
 tected against the damps of an autumnal even- 
 ing, that it was impossible for the most critical 
 eye to decide more, than that the little she 
 showed of her face seemed pleasing, and the
 
 YES AND NO. ]53 
 
 still less that was seen of her figure appeared 
 young. 
 
 As Lady Boreton advanced from an opposite 
 door to meet her guests, Lady Latimer intro- 
 duced this unexpected addition as "her particu- 
 lar friend. Miss Mordaunt, rather out of health 
 — wrote on purpose to ask to be allowed to bring 
 her, and quite forgot to mention it in that stupid 
 huiTied note." 
 
 Lady Latimer evidently thought that she had 
 said more than enough on the subject, and turn- 
 ing aside to address some one else, lost Lady 
 Boreton's embarrassed and therefore embarrass- 
 ing reply, which was in words that " she was 
 always too happy to see any friend of hers," 
 but which in tone rather implied that her house 
 was more than full. It seemed, indeed, to be 
 so felt by the young lady herself, and propor- 
 tionably to increase that shyness which had 
 been at first evident, so as to prevent her debar- 
 
 H 5
 
 154 YES AND NO. 
 
 rassing herself of the various wraps which com- 
 pletely concealed her from general observation. 
 
 " Oh ! on no account let me interrupt so m- 
 teresting a game," said Lady Latimer, finding 
 that such a proposal had been made by Germain, 
 and objected to by some of the others. *' I mean, 
 with Lady Boreton's permission, to stay and 
 warm my fingers at this fire for more than suf- 
 ficient time for you to decide it." 
 
 So commanded, Germain resumed his cue, 
 and as he sometimes played with great execu- 
 tion, made a brilliant stroke. " I'll bet any one 
 five to four on the stick," said Sir Gregory 
 Greenford, who had arrived that morning. 
 
 " I'll take it five-and-twenty to twenty," said 
 Lord Latimer, in the mildest tone, and with the 
 most careless manner, his quick eye having ob- 
 served that Germain played by no means a safe 
 game. Accordingly, his next stroke was a 
 failure. Fitzalbert made much of a see-saw
 
 YES AND NO. 155 
 
 losing hazard at the middle pocket. When that 
 was worn out, and whilst Germain in his turn was 
 taking a deliberate aim, he heard Lady Latimer 
 inquiring who he was. He involuntarily raised 
 his eye from the table and met hers — 
 
 " Who says she wants countenance?" thought 
 he ; and with that thought he played — missed 
 his adversary's ball — holed his own — lost the 
 game — Lady Latimer retired to dress — and Lord 
 Latimer pocketed Sir Gregory Greenford's 
 poney.
 
 156 YES AND NO. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 I will instruct my sorrows to be proud, 
 
 For grief is proud, and makes his owner stout. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 "And what has become of Mr. Oakley since 
 his late acquisition?" was one of the first 
 questions Lady Latimer asked of Germain. 
 Perhaps the reader may share her ladyship's 
 curiosity upon that subject, and may wish for 
 more detailed information than Germain had 
 then an opportunity of giving in reply.
 
 YES AND NO. 157 
 
 It was impossible for any two places to be 
 more different in every respect than those to 
 which Oakley had succeeded by the same event 
 — Rockington Castle and Goldsborough Park ; 
 the first of which had been subject to all the 
 caprices arising from the actual presence of its 
 late strange proprietor ; the other had enjoyed 
 the benefit of the delegated authority of a more 
 rational agent. If the farms upon the Golds- 
 borough estate, when accidentally vacant, were 
 always in the greatest request amongst agricul- 
 turists; if the relations between landlord and 
 tenant were here so well understood as for the 
 two parties to be convinced that their interests 
 were concurrent, not conflicting — this was en- 
 tirely owing to the excellent management of Mr. 
 Gardner, who conducted affairs in Lord Rock- 
 ington's name quite differently from the way 
 in which he would have conducted them himself, 
 and therefore as beneficially as possible. He
 
 158 YES AND NO. 
 
 was indeed one of the best specimens of a prac- 
 tical agriculturist ; a perfect knowledge of his 
 subject being joined with an anxious desire 
 to do the best for his employer, an endeavour 
 that was more likely to be successful, as he 
 was free from the blind ignorance and self-in- 
 terest combined which are apt to defeat their 
 own object. The park was perfectly well kept 
 up, as were the rest of the grounds, gar- 
 dens, &,c.; and the house, though a small 
 one, had always been used by Mr. Gardner as 
 his own residence, was in perfect repair, and fit 
 for immediate habitation. 
 
 There was somethino; in all this, which 
 Oakley could not understand ; for, as he ap- 
 proached the place, leaning back in his post- 
 chaise, and brooding over past events and 
 future prospects, the one thing that he had 
 settled in his mind as quite beyond dispute, 
 was, that the uncontrolled agent of such a
 
 YES AND NO. 159 
 
 property as Goldsborough must be a rogue. 
 He had contrived several cunning devices, by 
 which he would detect him if he was a clever 
 rogue, and had rather enjoyed the idea of the 
 summary expulsion he would inflict if he 
 should be a palpable scoundrel. 
 
 But, in spite of all this prepossession, there 
 was a frankness in Mr. Gardner's first ahord 
 which puzzled him, till he succeeded in per- 
 suading himself that it must arise from the 
 consummate assurance of long-undetected vil- 
 lainy. Having accepted Mr. Gardner's offer 
 of usins: his servants. Sec. till the arrival of his 
 own establishment, it was still with jaun- 
 diced eyes that Oakley witnessed the little 
 comforts of this contented man's adopted 
 home, all of which he looked upon as so 
 many fraudulent appropriations out of what 
 ought to have been his inheritance. Even Mrs. 
 Gardner's self-satisfied allusion to her scientific
 
 160 YES AND NO. 
 
 care of the garden, he perverted into a bare- 
 faced acknowledoment that she had made the 
 most of it. In riding the boundaries with Mr. 
 Gardner, the friendly greeting which that gen- 
 tleman received from every one they met, aris- 
 ino- from a long experience of kind and neigh- 
 bourly offices at his hands, Oakley attributed to 
 the intimacy arising from the common partner- 
 ship in his spoils- 
 
 " That piece of rising ground, with that oak 
 grove upon it facing your house, is freehold 
 property, Mr. Oakley," said Mr. Gardner ; 
 "it would be a very desirable acquisition to 
 you, and is at present upon sale." 
 
 " Not mine? to be sure it ought to be. To 
 whom does it belong?" inquired Oakley. 
 
 " The proprietor is an acquaintance of 
 mine; indeed, a sort of connexion of Mrs. 
 Gardner's."
 
 YES AND NO. 161 
 
 "Hum!" said Oakley, who was now con- 
 vinced he saw through it all. 
 
 " The ground is, fairly speaking, worth 
 some more years' purchase to you than to any 
 one else." 
 
 " Hum!" repeated Oakley. 
 
 " Perhaps, as it is shortly to be put up to 
 auction, and the affair therefore presses, you 
 would authorize me to offer, which I could 
 easily do, something more than what, at a fair 
 valuation, it might be worth to an indifferent 
 person." 
 
 " Not the fraction of a farthing, Mr. Gard- 
 ner," answered Oakley. 
 
 Mr. Gardner, though rather surprised, thought 
 he had done his duty, and dropped the subject, 
 which was never resumed between them. How 
 far Oakley's suspicious nature was here an ad- 
 vantage to him, will hereafter be seen.
 
 162 YES AND NO, 
 
 It was in such a state of mind, pampered 
 too with fond indulo;ence, whilst chewino- the 
 cud of such congenial food as twenty years un- 
 audited accounts afford, that Germain found 
 his friend, when Fitzalbert, on his way to Bore- 
 ton Hall, dropped him at the park-gate. It was 
 no wonder then, that Germain did not prolong 
 his visit beyond the one night he had originally 
 intended, but hastened to rejoin more lively 
 society ; and Oakley remained some time 
 longer undisturbed in trying to detect fresh 
 grounds for suspicion. 
 
 There were some circumstances, connected 
 with one of the annual items contained in Mr. 
 Gardner's accounts, which might have been 
 supposed to require explanation even by a more 
 candid or careless auditor than Oakley. This 
 was a yearly sum of 500/. mentioned as paid 
 over by order of Lord Rockington to a banker at
 
 YES AND NO. 163 
 
 a neighbouring country town. Now it so hap- 
 pened that this banker was also a connexion of 
 Mrs. Gardner's, which was found out by Oak- 
 ley from his bearing the same name with the 
 o;entleman who owned the freehold. Mr. Gard- 
 ner, however, protested utter ignorance of the 
 purpose to which the money was applied, the 
 banker never havino- communicated with him 
 on the subject. But, on the other hand, he 
 could produce no other authority for the annual 
 payment, than that he had been desired by his 
 predecessor to continue what he represented 
 himself as having been ordered by Lord Rock- 
 ington to do. He had once endeavoured to 
 obtain from Lord Rockington more precise in- 
 structions on this, as well as other subjects, 
 but the only reply he received consisted of these 
 words : — " Communicate with me only in 
 figures — not letters." " As to this payment, it
 
 164 YES AND NO. 
 
 will now be my duty," said Mr. Gardner, « to 
 obtain for you all the information in my power 
 — to-morrow I should have had to make a 
 quarterly remittance of it. I will at the same 
 time make the necessary inquiries." 
 
 " Stop it, and say nothing. If this leads to 
 explanation, 'tis well ; if not, I shall know 
 what to infer." 
 
 This happened a few days previous to Ger- 
 main's visit, A few days more had passed after 
 it : nothing had been heard with reg-ard to the 
 stopped annuity, and Oakley was beginning 
 to feast upon the certainty that he had detected 
 Mr. Gardner in barefaced appropriation, when 
 a packet, in a woman's hand, was forwarded to 
 him from Messrs. Maxwell's office, and it was 
 with no small surprise that he read as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 " It is only from an anxious desire to ensure 
 a patient perusal of what I have to commu-
 
 YES AND NO. 165 
 
 nicate, and from no vain hope of avoiding the 
 bitter humiliation which this act must entail 
 upon the writer, that I have many times 
 thrown down my pen dissatisfied with any 
 attempt even at opening the subject. Utterly 
 unknown as I am to you, I feel that you may be 
 as little disposed to believe, as I am to mention 
 as a boast, that if the utter destitution of myself 
 alone was effected by the stoppage of the an- 
 nuity you have withdrawn, I should a thousand 
 times have preferred a silent acquiescence to 
 saying what I have to say. But it is one of 
 the difiiculties of the appeal I have to make to 
 you, that founded as it must be, upon the dis- 
 closure of disgraceful facts, I have no right to 
 blend them with the assumption of credit for 
 those better feelings, which under other cir- 
 cumstances, I trust you would not be disposed 
 to refuse. 
 
 " The person who is attempting to muster
 
 166 YES AND NO. 
 
 courage sufficient to send you this paper, 
 though the daughter of a general officer in the 
 British army, is not a native of these islands, 
 but of a very different climate, and educated 
 in a very different society from that to which 
 her father's rank might have entitled her, had 
 he remained at home. It was in one of our 
 distant colonies that I was born, and it was as 
 the idol of its small circle, that I was brought 
 np. I need no further disclaim any vestiges 
 of vanity as to the personal admiration I then 
 excited, than by owning, that it is now twenty 
 years since I first began to overrate their value. 
 I owe no gratitude to that which was the cause, 
 first of my union with a man older than my 
 father, one of the principal government officers 
 of the colony, and afterwards of all my sub- 
 sequent errors and disgrace. 
 
 " But, though with a feeling far removed 
 flora pride, I must, (to enable you at all to
 
 YES AND NO. 167 
 
 comprehend what I have to say,) acknowledge 
 that,for many giddy years I reigned in undis- 
 puted possession of the admiration of all the 
 small society in which I moved. Lord Rock- 
 ington's appointment as governor, which fol- 
 lowed some political movements which had 
 passed utterly unheeded by me, was an event 
 which seemed likely completely to change 
 the state of society in the settlement. His 
 arrival had been preceded by that of many 
 officers and their wives and daughters, belong- 
 ing to the enlarged staff which his appointment 
 entailed. 
 
 " Amongst these ladies, to my surprise, I 
 found, not only pretensions of declared rival- 
 ship, but an air of decided superiority, founded 
 upon their arrival from Europe. You have 
 never seen, you cannot imagine, the rancorous 
 jealousies to which an insulated settlement is 
 subject. There are many virtues honourable to
 
 168 YES AND NO. 
 
 human nature, which are pecuHarly found in 
 such a state of society ; but it is also im- 
 possible to conceive by what trifles the worst 
 passions are there excited. 
 
 " The new state of things produced by these 
 recent additions to the society, had almost fren- 
 zied my frivolous mind, when the arrival of 
 Lord Rockington himself again completely re- 
 volutionized every thing. It pleased him from 
 the first, to single me out as the undisputed 
 leader of the courtly circle by which he was 
 surrounded. What he then was, and how 
 far the undisguised homage of such a man 
 was calcuhited to fascinate a foolish weak wo- 
 man, who had never before even seen any one 
 of his distinguished rank and reputation, I 
 will not pretend to plead ; there are, if fame 
 be not more than usually false, in more ex- 
 alted circles, living witnesses of his seductive 
 arts. But, shame upon me! the mere recall-
 
 YES AND NO. 169 
 
 ing of events so long past, seems to have 
 conjured up with it all those bad feelings I 
 had hoped were for ever eradicated. 
 
 " Let me escape any further detail of, or com- 
 ment upon this part of my subject. I had no 
 excuse; I could not call it love — all the evil 
 passions of my nature, for a while united in 
 their victory over better feelings and principles. 
 The intoxication was short-lived : my husband, 
 who had been absent in a distant part of the 
 colony, abruptly returned. His suspicions were 
 excited, and eagerly confirmed by those whose 
 envy had been kindled by my guilty eleva- 
 tion. My innocent child, my only comfort, was 
 born but to be denounced and disclaimed by 
 its legal parent. My disgrace, of course, im- 
 mediately followed, and was but the forerunner 
 of the ruin of that distinguished individual, 
 who had rather dazzled my imagination, and 
 trmmphed over my passions, than won my 
 
 VOL. I. ,
 
 170 YES AND NO. 
 
 heart. My husband was one of the principal 
 instigators of his threatened impeachment : in 
 the excited state of our disorganised society, 
 there were plenty found to back his accusa- 
 tions ; whether they were well-founded or not, 
 is out of my power to decide ; it is sufficient 
 to remember, that they were successful ; and it 
 is but justice to him to say, that even whilst 
 writhing under that degradation, which his 
 proud spirit must have rendered insupportable, 
 the arrangements of that allowance which you 
 have stopped, was the last act which showed 
 sympathy with his kind. 
 
 " Now, Mr. Oakley, if in what I have re- 
 lated you have seen any symptom of a weak 
 desire to extenuate my guilt, or to work upon 
 your feelings, by finding out subtle excuses 
 for my conduct — then heed not the earnest 
 appeal I am about to make, not for myself, but 
 for one whom I should not, even after another
 
 YES AND NO. 171 
 
 twenty years of bitter repentance, be worthy to 
 describe as she deserves, — the best, kindest, and 
 most affectionate of daughters. But if you 
 can enter into the bitter feehngs of humihation, 
 with which I have avowed myself to an utter 
 stranger such as I was, then perhaps you will 
 credit the assurance, that the fatal errors of 
 my own early life have not been without their 
 due impression, and that the harrowing recol- 
 lections derived from them have been but an- 
 other incitement, to instil better principles into 
 the willing mind of her, who has the misfortune 
 to owe her being to me. 
 
 " What the circumstances of her birth were, 
 1 am sure you will think I have not done wrong 
 in concealing from my innocent girl. To as- 
 sume a fictitious name, was a necessary conse- 
 quence of that concealment. That thus un- 
 explained, she has borne with the utmost cheer- 
 fulness, and without ever repining, that life 
 
 i2
 
 172 
 
 YES AND NO. 
 
 of solitude, to which I have always adhered, 
 is one of the least of her virtues. Accident 
 made her acquainted with a lady, whose friend- 
 ship her merits obtained her. That at that 
 lady's request I have allowed her, under her 
 protection, to leave me for a while to mix 
 in that society she is so calculated to adorn, 
 I now feel to have been my greatest error in 
 regard to her; for Helen would never submit 
 to move in the world as a dependent beggar. 
 My only excuse is, that at the time I so per- 
 mitted her, from the mystery with which your 
 uncle's affairs have long been conducted, I was 
 ignorant that the provision he had made for 
 his child was not legally settled. 
 
 " I have finished my irksome task. I have 
 confined myself, as much as the agitation of 
 my feelings would allow, to a statement of 
 facts. I make no request; but hope that at 
 least you will understand the motive of this
 
 YES AND NO. 173 
 
 intrusion by her, who has long been known 
 only as 
 
 " Emtly Mordaunt." 
 
 This appeal was, on many accounts, pecu- 
 liarly calculated to excite Oakley's sympathy. 
 Candour was a quality, the existence of which 
 he was often inclined to dispute, but that once 
 acknowledged, no one was more ready to do 
 justice to its value. The utter absence of any 
 attempt at self-justification on the part of Mrs. 
 Mordaunt, which in her case arose sponta- 
 neously from the habitual discipline of a con- 
 trite spirit, would, even if only artfully assumed, 
 have been the best method to win his favour- 
 able attention. 
 
 The idea too, of scrupulously attending to 
 the wishes of his late uncle, would at the pre- 
 sent moment, independent of any other con- 
 sideration, have been one of the most powerful
 
 174 
 
 YES AND NO. 
 
 incentives to action. He wished in person to 
 have explained, and apologised to Mrs. Mor- 
 daunt for the temporary stoppage of the an- 
 nuity, but on communicating through Messrs. 
 Maxwell his desire to do so, he found that it 
 was an effort she wished to be spared. 
 
 He lost no time however, in directing that 
 the settlement should be made legally binding 
 on himself, and grumbled not a little at the 
 delay in the execution of his orders, caused by 
 the crampt movements of his lawyer's fingers, 
 in whose hands the most volatile quill ever 
 plucked from the feathered tribe, would have lost 
 all its former winged properties. Certain it is, 
 that his better feelings had been roused by 
 the appeal that had been made to them. He 
 recurred with satisfaction to the part it had 
 enabled him to act; and whilst he remained in 
 his present solitude, even in the midst of a doubt- 
 ful " dot and carry one " in a disputed account.
 
 YES AND NO. 175 
 
 an indistinct vision would sometimes cross him of 
 a figure, in whose features the fine outhnes of 
 his uncle's portrait were softened into feminine 
 loveliness, and whose gentle eyes beamed with 
 gratitude to her benefactor.
 
 176 YES AND NO 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 A wife whose words all ears took captive, 
 
 Whose dear perfections hearts that scorn'd to serve, 
 
 Humbly called Mistress. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 Lady Latimer and her protegee were left 
 retiring to dress, and according to generally- 
 established precedent, a full and detailed ac- 
 count ought to be given of the successful result 
 of their labours. But will my fair readers pardon 
 a poor author who owns that it is the dread of 
 their disgust which makes him shun an attempt 
 by which some ignorantly suppose that their
 
 YES AND NO. 177 
 
 favour is easiest won ? For though he hopes that, 
 utterly unskilled as he is in these mysteries, he 
 still might manage to avoid such glaring mis- 
 takes as those made by some self-constituted 
 authorities on these subjects, who have scan- 
 dalized the taste of the sex, and volunteered a 
 display of their own ignorance by a description 
 of their heroine either by daylight in the dog- 
 days in a superb dress of rich black velvet, or 
 shining amid December snows in flowing drapery 
 of the finest white muslin ; yet even avoiding 
 this Scylla and Charybdis, the writer of these 
 pages is aware he is on dangerous ground. 
 Though he might escape any such flagrant error 
 at the present moment, many months may yet 
 intervene before this meets the public eye ; and 
 as he has, like other such ephemeral creatures, 
 his own little unacknowledged hopes of a sort of 
 indefinite immortality, he cannot bear the idea 
 
 that if he should now so commit himself, when 
 
 I 5
 
 178 YES AND NO. 
 
 the next return of spring shall enable the uni- 
 versally admitted arbitress of taste to hold her 
 annual court at Longchamp, even on that very 
 day every pretty pair of Parisian eyes would be 
 averted in contempt from this antiquated and 
 old-fashioned page, and as a necessary conse- 
 quence, as fast us the post could convey the 
 Journal des Modes, tliat contempt would become 
 universal, not falling ulone, as it ought, on his 
 devoted head, but what is of infinitely more con- 
 sequence, being unjustly shared by the ladies 
 whom he would have thus arbitrarily con- 
 demned still to wear the fashions of the bygone 
 year. 
 
 He hopes therefore that no more will be ex- 
 pected of him than vaguely to assure his readers 
 that when Lady Latimer had exchanged her 
 travellino-dress. the success of her toilet was 
 justly the admiration of the brilliant circle she 
 found re-assembled to meet her; and that as she
 
 YRS AND NO. 179 
 
 was far above any low idea of rivalry, much 
 more than the care which she had bestowed 
 upon her ovt'n appearance, had been lavished 
 upon that of the pretty interesting girl who ac- 
 companied her, and upon whom she had forced 
 many of her own newest and most becoming 
 ornaments. 
 
 Fitzalbert loudly protested that it quite re- 
 freshed him to see for the first time any thing 
 so singularly attractive as Miss Mordaunt ; but 
 Germain had eyes for no one but Lady Latimer j 
 he had predetermined that she would be the 
 most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Na- 
 ture certainly had been a party to this prede- 
 termination, and the charm of those perfections 
 which she had borne from her birth was en- 
 hanced by that allurement of manner which 
 cannot be described. Combined with the most 
 perfect propriety of deportment, there was, when 
 she pleased, a softened expression in her bright
 
 180 YES AND NO. 
 
 eye, a subdued tone in her musical voice, which, 
 unmarked by all else, conveyed to him whom 
 she addressed, an irresistible impression of in- 
 terest. 
 
 The effect of this was not lost upon Germain, 
 to whose evident admiration she was by no 
 means insensible. He was good-looking, agree- 
 able, and well-informed, and his newness in the 
 ways of the world was rather an additional merit, 
 when freed from the first incrustation oi mauvaise 
 honte, which her easy, gentle manners soon con- 
 trived to remove. 
 
 He was a welcome neighbour to her at dinner, 
 for from the first she had looked forward to her 
 visit to the Boretons as an unpleasant duty, and 
 the set she had found assembled had, with few 
 exceptions, confirmed that expectation. Fitz- 
 albert to be sure was one of her intimates, but 
 then it was the intimacy of indifference. He 
 too seemed for the present very sufiiciently occu-
 
 YES AND NO. 181 
 
 pied in attempting to overcome the diffidence 
 of her young friend. Miss Mordaunt. 
 
 Meantime Lady Latimer's rapidly-ripening 
 acquaintance with Germain suffered no check 
 from her other neighbour. Sir John, who, after 
 he had asked her whether she drank wine or 
 hked a screen, offered no further interruption. 
 Where all this while was the anxious eye of 
 Lady Flamborough, whose worst fears seemed 
 confirmed as to the engrossing nature of her 
 daughter Louisa's love of admiration ? It reposed 
 with some sort of consolation upon the juxta- 
 position of Lady Caroline and Sir Gregory 
 Greenford, whose unexpected arrival that day 
 had already, as has been noted above, cost him 
 a poney, and now seemed to have exposed him 
 to a renewal of these manoeuvres on Lady Flam- 
 borough's part, which the abrupt termination 
 of the London season had inopportunely in- 
 terrupted.
 
 18'2 YES AND NO. 
 
 At the opposite end of the table Lord Latimer 
 and Lady Boreton were mutually engaged with 
 equal art in avoiding to say what they really 
 thought upon a very interesting subject, which 
 had been indiscreetly brought upon the tapis 
 by the literary gentleman from London, un- 
 luckily ignorant as he was of county politics. 
 This was no less an event than the long- 
 expected advertisement from Mr. Medium, an- 
 nouncing his intention, on account of increasing 
 infirmities, of taking the earliest opportunity of 
 retiring from the representation of the county. 
 
 " So," said the Londoner, " I see that you 
 are likely to have a vacancy for the county' — 
 Who is expected to succeed Mr. Medium?" 
 
 This was a most important question, upon 
 which both Lord Latimer and Lady Boreton 
 bad settled in their own minds to meditate 
 much, consult cautiously, decide deliberately, 
 and after all this to communicate formally to
 
 YES AND NO, 183 
 
 each other their separate determinations : in- 
 stead of which they were summarily required 
 in each other's presence to give an ofF-hand 
 answer. It was impossible to affect deafness, 
 for though a moment before the clatter and 
 chatter of knives, forks, and tongues, had 
 seemed eternal, just then there had occurred 
 one of those unaccountable pauses which some- 
 times cause a sudden calm, so that much more 
 gentle tones than those of the pragmatical gen- 
 tleman who had made the inquiry would have 
 been very sufficiently audible. 
 
 Lord Latimer had just drank a glass of wine 
 with Lady Boreton, so that even this ready 
 resource to turn the conversation was no longer 
 open. Luckily, he who had caused the dilemma 
 came to their relief, for not receiving a ready 
 answer to his question, he jiroceeded with the 
 subject for the sake of introducing which he had 
 propounded it, a critical analysis of poor Mr. Me-
 
 184 YES AND NO. 
 
 dium's advertisement ; where, to be sure, for so 
 constitutional a statesman, some sentences were 
 cruelly burdened with a " dead weight" ot" 
 adverbs and adjectives : and pronouns were 
 arbitarily entrusted with authority over con- 
 siderable portions of the address, which are 
 usually supposed in such a case to be themselves 
 governed by a verb. 
 
 " It is," continued the critic, " a sufficient 
 proof of the inaccuracies tolerated in our legis- 
 lative assemblies, that a gentleman who had 
 passed his whole life there, should at this time, 
 being resigning, not have learnt to write 
 better." 
 
 Lord Latimer could not help remarking, in 
 an under tone to Lady Boreton, that a person 
 being criticizing might have learnt to avoid the 
 worst innovation in the style of modern times. 
 He then continued aloud for fear the critical
 
 YES AND NO. 185 
 
 gentleman should again become curious : " Poor 
 Medium, he certainly never was much of a 
 purist." 
 
 " And yet I doubt," rejoined Lady Boreton, 
 " whether he ever read any book more at a 
 sitting, than others do of a dictionary." 
 
 " Or even of a newspaper," added Lord 
 Latimer, " than just to see whether the stupid 
 editor had made any mistake in the name of 
 the cover where his hounds were advertised to 
 meet." 
 
 " Well, and what can be more provoking 
 than such a mistake?" said Sir Gregory. 
 Lord Latimer, and Lady Boreton, both felt 
 satisfied that they had succeeded in turning 
 the subject — half the party were soon in full 
 cry with Mr. Medium's hounds, and engaged 
 in the more interesting enquiry, who was to 
 succeed to them, as chronic gout, and rheuma-
 
 186 YES AND NO. 
 
 tism, were likely to incapacitate the sufferer 
 from his duties as much in the field as in the 
 House. 
 
 But though for the present, the necessity of 
 explanation had been avoided, it did not the 
 less impress both parties with the conviction 
 that something ought soon to be settled on the 
 subject. To induce Oakley to come forward, 
 was, as has been stated before. Lady Boreton's 
 best hope. Sir John's insignificance or nonentity 
 being by none more feelingly acknowledged 
 than her ladyship. She had already had the 
 proposal hinted to Oakley, in a manner that 
 she thought the most likely to be attended with 
 success. 
 
 Of all the various propositions that can be 
 made to a young man in his situation, there is 
 none as to the motives of which he is so likely 
 to be deceived, or to overrate the advantages 
 of an offer of support, should he be induced to
 
 YES AND NO. 
 
 187 
 
 come forward as a popular candidate at a con- 
 tested election. All Oakley's defects too, 
 whether of temper or disposition, which made 
 him feel uncomfortable in many of the relations 
 of private life, were so many additional incen- 
 tives to seek distinction in public, and to make 
 politics his resource. In principle he was a 
 decided advocate for universal liberty, tempered 
 only so far as common sense told him restraint 
 was necessary ; but as he was prepared to carry 
 with him, in whatever character he appeared, 
 the same uncompromising contempt for the 
 opinions of any individuals who differed with 
 him, he was more likely to acquire the some- 
 what sterile fame of a most unbending patriot, 
 than to be a useful partner in promoting any 
 practical benefit to his country. 
 
 However, his exalted station in the county, 
 unblemished character, and commanding ta- 
 lents, made it obvious that a more eligible
 
 188 YES AND NO. 
 
 candidate could not be put forward by any 
 party. The zeal and sincerity of his attach- 
 ment to the popular side marked him as worthy 
 the choice of the people, if his reserve, hauteur, 
 and coldness, in the intercourse of private life, 
 could be so far subdued as to induce him to 
 take the necessary steps towards obtaining their 
 suffrages. Such as he was, however. Lady 
 Boreton was determined to do her best to bring 
 him in ; and he had so far acceded to the ar- 
 rangement, as to consent to join the present 
 mixed party at Boreton Hall, whose places, as 
 they gradually dropped off, were to be filled by 
 more decided county partizans ; and the pro- 
 bable success of the attempt, should he come 
 forward, was tlien to be discussed amongst 
 them. 
 
 As to Lord Latimer, his plans were by no 
 means so far matured as Lady Boreton's. Poli- 
 tics were with him by no means so first-rate a
 
 YES' AND NO. 
 
 189 
 
 pursuit. He had succeeded to a situation in 
 the world which necessarily entailed a consider- 
 able deoree of political influence ; this he cer- 
 tainly thought it his duty not to abandon, but 
 besides that, the overweening indolence which 
 has been mentioned as obscuring his talents, 
 made him dislike trouble of any kind : but he 
 was, when he could persuade himself to think at 
 all on the subject, by no means an illiberal 
 Tory. 
 
 When the question was publicly put as to 
 who was to succeed Mr. Medium, he would 
 have disliked hearing uncontradicted any ra- 
 dical nomination of Lady Boreton's, lest he 
 should be supposed tacitly to concur in it ; yet 
 there were many reasons likely to prevent his 
 taking an active part in thwarting her arrange- 
 ments. 
 
 '* Our new neighbour, Mr. Oakley, has pro- 
 mised us the pleasure of his company to-mor-
 
 190 YES AND NO, 
 
 row," said Lady Boreton, carelessly, to Lord 
 Latimer, having first carefully so separated 
 this remark from the previous conversation as 
 to prevent his suspecting that the visit was 
 connected with the object of that inquiry. But 
 she need not have feared any such inference on 
 Lord Latimer's part, for the mention of Mr. 
 Oakley in the character of their new neighbour 
 gave quite a different turn to his thoughts, and 
 first brought to his recollection the disputed 
 moors above Peatburn Lodge, which had 
 lately been out of his mind, partly from his 
 not having himself been out on the 12th of 
 August, and partly from his thoughts having 
 till lately been much engrossed by important 
 annual business at Doncaster races. It now, 
 however, occurred to him, that in consequence 
 of the transfer of the Rockington property to 
 new hands, a favourable opportunity was likely 
 to arise of effecting an exchange which would
 
 YES AND NO. 191 
 
 remove the offensive intrusion of another man's 
 ground into one of his best beats. 
 
 It so happened, therefore, that though din- 
 ner had not promised much pleasure to any of 
 the party, almost all arose from the table with 
 agreeable impressions uppermost in their minds. 
 Lady Boreton anticipated in Oakley an uncom- 
 promising patriot ; Lord Latimer an accom- 
 modating sportsman ; Lady Flamborough's sa- 
 tisfaction was divided between the actual pre- 
 sence of Sir Gregory Greenford and the ex- 
 pected arrival of Oakley, who might, she now 
 thought, do still better for Jane than Germain. 
 The literary lion had had an opportunity of 
 haranguing, and Sir John had not been ex- 
 pected to talk, a state of things that was mu- 
 tually satisfactory. 
 
 Lady Latimer and Germain had been reci- 
 procally pleasing and pleased ; and as for Fitz- 
 albert and Miss Mordaunt, it would be diffi-
 
 192 YES AND NO. 
 
 cult to say which had most puzzled and per- 
 plexed the other. That a young person like 
 Helen Mordaunt, to whom society was per- 
 fectly strange, should be dazzled and bewild- 
 ered by Fitzalbert's flow of conversation, was 
 not to be wondered at ; but on his part he found 
 it difficult to determine what could be her 
 undeniable attraction. " Is it," thought 
 he, " merely because she is a remarkably 
 pretty girl, with a very distinguished air?" 
 That it partly arose from her being so per- 
 fectly natural, never occurred to him as an ad- 
 ditional solution of the difficulty.
 
 YES AND NO. 193 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Then she plots, then she ruminates, then she devises ; and 
 what they think in their hearts they may effect, they will 
 break their hearts but they will effect. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 The intercourse of society is maintained by 
 a sort of tacit compact between the few 
 who are determined to have their own way, 
 and the iiiany who consent to allow it 
 them. If it were not thus, there would be 
 numberless contests about things very little 
 worth the trouble of contention. Of course, 
 in these two classes there are various degrees, 
 
 VOL. I, j^
 
 194 YES AND NO. 
 
 and he who leads in one society will follow in 
 another. But I am alluding only to that tem- 
 per of mind which disposes a man, when among 
 his equals, to drive or be driven ; as one of 
 these relative positions sounds much pleasanter 
 than the other, one would imagine that it would 
 be desired by every one who could attain it. 
 
 This, however, is far from being the case. 
 Nor is the right to have one's own way, and 
 the power of making others acknowledge it, 
 founded on any well-grounded claim. It is 
 generally a matter of unaccountable assumption 
 on the one part, and concurrent concession on 
 the other. 
 
 To be such a privileged person seems to de- 
 pend merely upon a man's own taste and tem- 
 per; and to the success of the attempt it is only 
 necessary that some sort of passport should be 
 possessed which secures admission into society, 
 and prevents another's power of " cutting dead,"
 
 YES AND NO. 195 
 
 an alternative that would, if possible, be gladly 
 adopted by all ; but this danger avoided, the 
 enjoyments of sheer selfishness seem manifold. 
 Wherever such a person goes, the ninety and nine 
 easily satisfied guests are neglected, to study the 
 price of hira who is hard to please ; he may 
 indulge uncontradicted in infinite paradox, any 
 thing being considered preferable to endless 
 dispute. If after a course of such studied in- 
 dulgence, he should condescend to be aoreeable, 
 every one is at once in ecstacies of gratitude, 
 exclaiming; " How very delightful Mr. So-and- 
 so, can be !" whereas, if a systematically good- 
 natured man is ever provoked, by an unlucky 
 concurrence of circumstances, to commit himself 
 by losing his temper, he is sure never to hear 
 the last of it. 
 
 But the privileged person is not without 
 some little drawbacks upon the advantao-es of 
 his situation, sitting as he does like an incubus 
 
 K 2
 
 196 YES AND NO. 
 
 ujjon the spirits of society : he finds himself 
 artfully omitted from any very pleasant party; 
 and if chance should ever cause him to linoer 
 near an open door, or any such social trap for 
 sincerity, he is not unlikely to hear himself 
 talked of without that restraint which the love 
 of a quiet life, and the dislike of a needless 
 quarrel, felt by all prudent people, may have 
 caused in his presence. 
 
 Oakley was as yet by no means sufficiently 
 known to have established himself irrevocably 
 in either of these classes, but the character 
 which he had acquired at college, and rather 
 confirmed by the report of the few persons 
 whom he did not succeed in avoiding at Paris, 
 was that of " a stiff sort of fellow, whom it 
 was very difficult to make out ; clever enough, 
 certainly, but with nothing off-hand about 
 him." 
 
 This opinion, which had originally been thus
 
 YES AND NO. 197 
 
 elegantly expressed by some jolly companions, 
 for whom he had not attempted to conceal his 
 contempt, had been substantially repeated with 
 some variation in the terms, whenever his name 
 was subsequently mentioned; and it was on 
 this that the general expectation in the minds 
 of the party at Boreton Hall, who were await- 
 ing his arrival, was founded. The importance 
 attached to his adventitious acquisitions pre- 
 vented his being allowed to drop in as an m- 
 different item in the party ; it became necessary 
 either to reckon upon him as a valuable addi- 
 tion, or to dread him as a bugbear, and the 
 latter alternative was generally adopted. 
 
 It was in consequence of this, and the dis- 
 position it produced, rather to avoid his neigh- 
 bourhood, that accident placed him, on the first 
 day of his arrival, by the side of Miss Mordaunt. 
 He had not heard her name, and the resemblance 
 to his uncle, which had he done so could not
 
 198 YES AND NO, 
 
 have failed to strike him, was not strong 
 enough at once to explain itself to him as the 
 cause of the interest he felt in addressing her. 
 The young lady, though as usual, much en- 
 grossed by her other neighbour Fitzalbert, 
 whose ever-ready rattle still amused her, would 
 not agree with him afterwards, that Oakley had 
 by any means, a forbidding countenance, or 
 that his smile at all partook of the nature of a 
 sneer ; perhaps this difference of opinion may 
 have arisen from that which passed by the 
 common name of smile, not having been a pre- 
 cisely similar movement of the lips towards 
 these two different persons. 
 
 Oakley hastened to inquire of Germain, the 
 name of the young lady who had been sitting 
 next him. 
 
 " Oh," said Germain, " it's Miss — , Lady 
 
 Latimer always calls her Helen ; Miss let 
 
 me see — one never remembers a name when
 
 \ESANDNO. 199 
 
 one is asked. Don't you think Lady Latimer a 
 most beautiful woman ?" 
 
 " Very handsome, certainly ; but for my 
 part, I admire much more the lady she is talk- 
 ing to ; there is a great likeness between them , 
 the one without any thing in her hair." 
 
 " That's her sister, Lady Jane ; a very pretty, 
 and a very delightful person, but not to be 
 compared to Lady Latimer. There is no ac- 
 counting for tastes. There's Fitzalbert, who 
 sometimes takes strange fancies into his head, 
 says, that he doesn't think either of them as 
 pretty as that Miss Mordaunt." 
 
 "Miss Mordaunt?" eagerly inquired Oak- 
 ley. 
 
 " That's the young lady you were inquiring 
 about — Miss Mordaunt ; she came here with 
 Lady Latimer, who " 
 
 " One word, Mr. Oakley," said Lady Bore- 
 ton, coming up between the two friends, and
 
 200 YES AND NO. 
 
 interrupting the opportunity they would other- 
 wise have had, the one of talking about Lady 
 Latimer, the other of thinking about Helen 
 Mordaunt. If Oakley had been better ac- 
 (juainted with Lady Boreton, he would have 
 had a more adequate horror of the interminable 
 nature of her " one word," but as it was, he 
 ((uietly submitted to follow her to a sofa in a 
 remote corner of the gallery, and to confine, as 
 far as possible, his attention to her ladyship's 
 somewhat digressive confidences on the subject 
 of county politics. 
 
 At length, her " one word " having proceeded 
 at the rate of half a word an hour, he was re- 
 leased for the evening ; and then, when he re- 
 tired to his own apartment, the impressions 
 made by the really important communications 
 on the subject of the coming election, vvhich he 
 had been able to extract from Lady Boreton 's 
 somewhat chaffy reasoning, occasionally gave
 
 YES AND NO. 201 
 
 place to the pleasure he felt at thus unex- 
 pectedly meeting one with whom circumstances 
 had already somewhat mysteriously connected 
 him, and whose appearance seemed so well cal- 
 culated to confirm the predetermined favourable 
 bent of his imagination. 
 
 The next morning, after breakfast. Lady 
 Flamborouo-h, havinoj first contrived some oc- 
 cupation for her two unmarried daughters, 
 which should prevent their being in the way, 
 led Lady Latimer to her boudoir, being anxious 
 to have a private interview with her, which she 
 meant should partake of the mixed character 
 of asking advice and giving a lecture. For 
 since Louisa's marriage, and the consequent 
 abrogation of maternal authority on the part 
 of Lady Flamborough, the usual relations be- 
 tween mother and dauo-hter had become a little 
 confused, and the mother was certainly the 
 most to blame for any failure of that filial re- 
 
 k5
 
 202 YES AND NO. 
 
 spect which might have been hers, had she not 
 herself shown that she considered her own 
 claims on that score as inferior to the deference 
 due to Lady Latimer's artificial position in the 
 world. 
 
 She had also lost much of her influence over 
 her daughter, from the latter having afterwards 
 discovered some of the little manoeuvres by 
 which her mother liad attempted to promote 
 her union with Lord Latimer, and as, whatever 
 her other faults might be, she was herself sin- 
 cere and single-hearted even to an extreme, 
 she could not but feel dislike at the means her 
 mother had employed, even before she became 
 sensible that the end thus attained had far 
 from contributed to her own happiness. Xot 
 that one can therefore defend the playful ma- 
 lice with which she sometimes endeavoured to 
 defeat her mother's management for her sisters, 
 for if her opinion of the mischievous effect it
 
 YES AND NO. 
 
 203 
 
 was likely to produce, would not justify her in 
 being the person thus to interfere, it must also 
 be confessed, that her own eager love of ad- 
 miration was sometimes not without its share 
 in inducing her to make the attempt. 
 
 In spite, however, of the little annoyances of 
 this description which she sometimes gave her 
 mother. Lady Flamboroiigh was well aware, that 
 the briUiant eclat of her eldest daughter cast 
 a reflected lustre upon her sisters, and that if 
 she could persuade her, which she had often 
 in vain attempted, to assist her in procuring 
 for them suitable establishments, she would be 
 a most valuable auxiliary in any such scheme. 
 
 It was to make one more effort of this kind, 
 as well as to hint, if possible, that she ought 
 not herself to take possession of Germain, that 
 she had summoned her to her boudoir. 
 
 " I wished to consult you, my dear," she 
 began ; " but, first let me look at that beau-
 
 204 YES AND NO, 
 
 tiful cap — Herbault's I perceive. I am not 
 sure, that T quite like the colour of those rib- 
 bons." 
 
 " It's quite new, however, and aptly en- 
 titled, yew d'enfer,'' said Lady Latimer. 
 
 " Well, you are certainly looking remarkably 
 well, quite a different thing since I saw you 
 in London ;" kissing a cheek, the brilliancy of 
 whose hue, even the trying neighbourhood 
 of fen d'enfer could not injure. " But," 
 added she, " I wished to consult you about 
 Sir Gregory Greenford's attentions to Caroline ; 
 his following her here certainly must mean 
 something." 
 
 " Do you think so? He is generally most 
 inexplicably void of meaning. But, how do 
 you know he followed her?" 
 
 " Oh, who can doubt it ? He must have 
 known that Lady Boreton would never have 
 asked him on any other account: he is not
 
 YES AND NO, 205 
 
 at all in her line. But what I wished to say 
 is this — that as Sir Gregory is soon going 
 to Newmarket with Lord Latimer, I thouoht 
 a word, a hint from him on the subject, might 
 do o-reat o;ood." 
 
 " My dear mamma, depend upon it, if Lati- 
 mer takes that opportunity of trying upon Sir 
 Gregory his talents at match-making, it won't 
 be in the matrimonial line ; and as I don't 
 perceive the advantages of any description that 
 I am to train from havino- such a fraternal fool 
 for the rest of my life, you must excuse my in- 
 terfering in the business." 
 
 " Surely you cannot be indifferent to the 
 prospect of such an advantageous establishment 
 for Caroline ; for you must recollect, that she 
 is only two years younger than you ; and years 
 count quite differently in a girl," added she, 
 observing from a glance Lady Latimer cast at 
 the glass, she did not think her mother's mode
 
 206 YES AND NO. 
 
 of reckoning judicious. " Besides, she is not 
 near so generally admired as Jane, who grows 
 more like you every day. As to her, though 
 you do not approve of Sir Gregory Greenford 
 for Caroline, I think you will not have the 
 same objection to Mr. Germain for Jane." 
 
 •' Mr. Germain for Jane !" repeated Lady 
 Latimer, in a tone in which was meant to be 
 expressed that this surpassed even the usual 
 latitude of improbability taken by her mother 
 in these speculations. 
 
 " Yes, before you came every one remarked 
 the evident attention he paid her; and when 
 I asked him last night if he did not see the 
 strong resemblance between you two, you can't 
 think how confused he was, as he replied that 
 Oakley had just observed it to him. Now, 
 though most worldly mothers would think dif- 
 ferently, I would rather see Jane married to Mr. 
 Germain than Mr. Oakley, with all his wealth.
 
 YES AND NO. 207 
 
 There is something singularly disagreeable to 
 me in that young man. I merely told him, 
 that I had heard so much of the splendour of 
 the late Lord Rockington's jewels, that I should 
 be delighted to see them. ' When they are for 
 sale or rather barter, you shall have the ear- 
 liest notice,' was his answer. Now, it was 
 not so much what he said, for I don't ex- 
 actly know what he meant, but there was 
 something in the tone of his voice that was 
 offensive. Your new protegee. Miss Mordaunt, 
 however, did not seem to think so. You know, 
 I never can find fault with any conduct of 
 yours, or else I might say, that it was not very 
 kind to your sisters to bring that girl to a 
 party of this kind as a rival to them. And 
 Fitzalbert, who is certainly losing his good 
 taste, crying her up so ridiculously, is sure to 
 have its effect with all those young men who 
 allow him the trouble of thinkino- for them."
 
 208 YES AND NO. 
 
 " Helen wants no such panegyrist," said 
 Lady Latimer warmly ; " but make yourself 
 easy, mamma, it shall be my task to take 
 care she does not engross Germain ; and as for 
 Mr. Oakley, she is a great deal too good for 
 him. I quite agree with you, that he is one of 
 those whose concurrence is even more oratina; 
 than some people's contradiction. Latimer 
 wished me to be civil to him, on account of 
 some estate which he wants him to exchanoe 
 about Peatburn Lodge. Dear pretty Peat- 
 burn, shall I ever see you again ?" added she, 
 with something approaching to a sigh, " and 
 my poor neglected rosebuds too ! Alas ! they 
 contained not the only hopes which then blos- 
 somed but to fade;" and she paused a moment, 
 as if cherishing the recollection of the sole 
 semblance of domestic happiness she had ever 
 enjoyed. 
 
 They had retired there for the shooting sea-
 
 YES AND NO. 209 
 
 son soon after the expiration of their honey- 
 moon ; and tliough Lord Latimer was out upon 
 the moors all the morning, he always appeared to 
 return with as much eao^erness as he went out ; 
 and if she might then have expected more, she 
 certainly had since experienced less. The un- 
 sophisticated sameness of the simple recrea" 
 tions with which she had then contrived to 
 while away his absence, had in her remem- 
 brance acquired a charm from all that had since 
 intervened. 
 
 " How happily could I pass all the rest of 
 
 my life in that secluded dell, only that " 
 
 she paused, but she might have added, " only 
 that one half of it is predestined to social dissi- 
 pation in London, the other to dissipated so- 
 ciety in the country. If, however, a year 
 should ever be made with thirteen months, she 
 thought she would pass the thirteenth at Peat- 
 burn Lodge.
 
 210 YES AND NO. 
 
 " And now, mamma, as you have no more 
 daughters to marry, you must let me leave you, 
 for Helen will be lost in this strange house, and 
 be wondering what has become of me." 
 
 But Helen was not one who ever found any 
 difficulty in occupying herself, and she had 
 been employing the morning very much to her 
 satisfaction in writing to her mother an account 
 of all that had happened since her arrival. 
 And as she never had any concealment from 
 her, she meant to be perfectly explicit in the 
 detail of all her own impressions and feelings, 
 as well as the manners and appearance of 
 others. 
 
 In furtherance of this intention, she had cer- 
 tainly recorded many more of Fitzalbert's bad 
 jokes than with a little more knowledge of the 
 world she would have thought worth commu- 
 nicating ; nor was it her fault if she was not 
 quite so candid in all she thought of Oakley :
 
 YES AND NO. 
 
 211 
 
 for how could she put upon paper that she fan- 
 cied, in addressing her, his smile was softer 
 and kinder than that he bestowed upon the 
 rest of the world .'—And this was all she had to 
 tell.
 
 ■212 
 
 YES AND NO. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Warwick, I love no colours; and without all colour 
 Of base insinuating flattery, 
 I pluck this white rose, with Plantagenet. 
 
 Sajfollc. 1 pluck this red rose, with young Somerset, 
 And say withal, I think he had tlie right. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 It was a few days after the foregoing inter- 
 view between Lady Latimer and her mother, 
 that Lord Latimer, beckoning Fitzalbert aside 
 after breakfast, communicated to him the un- 
 successful result of the request lie had made 
 to Oakley to open a negociation on the sub- 
 ject of the exchange of the moors about Peat- 
 burn Lodge.
 
 YES AND NO. 213 
 
 " I never in my life," said his lordship, 
 " saw such a cross-grained curmudgeon; his 
 only answer was, that he felt it his duty to 
 preserve his uncle's property such as he had 
 left it to him." — " But, my dear fellow," said 
 I, " this is quite unconnected with all the rest 
 of your property — a useless waste without a 
 house on it. I shall be always most happy to 
 receive you at Peatburn Lodge whenever you 
 hke to pay me a visit; but as to shooting on that 
 ground from your own house, you can no more 
 do it from thence than could your honoured 
 uncle himself from wherever he now is. I 
 own I was wrong to say that, Fitz, but I 
 could not help it, though I felt it at the time. 
 Well, the look it produced from him was one 
 of which I have not seen the like since I got 
 out of tlie lower school at Eton ; and saying 
 that the reasons of my request were so trivial, 
 that he would not willingly be compelled to
 
 214 YES AND NO. 
 
 take any thing seriously in the treatment of 
 such a subject, therefore he would only re- 
 ply that I had his answer he left the 
 
 room." 
 
 " A most statesman-like full stop, indeed," 
 said Fitzalbert. " He fancies he has already 
 got into the House ; or perhaps this was only 
 his conciliating manner of asking for your vote 
 and interest." 
 
 " How do you mean?" inquired Lord Lati- 
 mer j " has he any intention of coming forward 
 in the place of Mr. Medium ?" 
 
 " I have no doubt on the subject," replied Fitz- 
 albert. " You know, being no politician myself, 
 I sometimes am, unheeded, allowed to overhear 
 half-expressed confidences on the subject ; such 
 as the necessity yesterday enforced by Lady 
 Boreton, of his sitting next the squinting red- 
 haired Miss Martin, (the only daughter of 
 Martin and Co.'s manufactory,) whom they
 
 YES AND NO. 215 
 
 had brought back with them, after driving over 
 in the morning to see his new steara-mill — ra- 
 ther a suspicious expedition itself — which will 
 end in something more than smoke, depend 
 upon it." 
 
 " But I will never give my support to such 
 an unlicked cub — let him mark down all the 
 votes he'll get from me among the barren boo-s 
 he is so anxious to keep. A red-hot radical too, 
 I'm told !" 
 
 " Yes, and a moderate man like you will 
 find his opinions equally well represented 
 by such a factious firebrand as Oakley, and 
 such a furious bigot as Mr. Stedman, the old 
 member. Well, as I said, I am no politician, 
 but I can't help thinking it but befits a gentle- 
 man to move methodically forward with the 
 main body of the age in its regular march of 
 mind, neither seeking foolish forlorn-hopes in 
 advance hke Oakley, nor lagging disgracefully
 
 216 YES AND NO. 
 
 in the rear like old Stedman and those who 
 think with him, I care for none of them. To 
 me the sans culottes of the jacobin, and the 
 orthodox leathers of the old school, are alike 
 unseemly. You, who are stuck up as a pillar 
 of the state, ought to think more seriously of 
 these things than I, who am but a bit of useless 
 cornice overhanging the surface of society." 
 
 " Begging your pardon, Fitz, I think the most 
 valuable privilege of a well-deserving pillar' of 
 the ' order' to which I belong, is that which 
 exempts me from thinking any more than if I 
 were stone indeed. The drudges of the lower 
 house are obhged, if not to hear before they 
 decide, at least to wake before they can vote. 
 Many a time has ' my voice potential, double 
 as the duke's,' carried a question, not after a 
 debate in Parliament, but after a rubber at 
 Newmarket." 
 
 " But 1 don't want you to take any further
 
 TES AND NO, 217 
 
 trouble than just to enter your proxy in the 
 other House too. 'Tis a luxury that belongs to 
 your rank and fortune, as much as a second 
 carriage." 
 
 " Well," answered Latimer, " I should have 
 no objection to that, only a county member is 
 an article of rather expensive manufacture ; and 
 that unlucky filly having won the St. Leger 
 makes it a little inconvenient." 
 
 " To be sure it's no business of mine," said 
 Fitzalbert, " but I'll tell you a plan that has 
 occurred to me, which you may think on at 
 your leisure. What do you say to Germain? 
 he has a very good, though not a first-rate pro- 
 perty in the county, and plenty of ready money 
 from his long minority ; brought forward on your 
 interest he might succeed without costing you 
 any thing. I don't know much of his political 
 opinions, but I should think they were malleable 
 enough to satisfy you." 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 218 YES AND NO. 
 
 This proposal had many recommendations to 
 Lord Latimer ; he was in a state of mind very 
 much to enjoy any thing that had a tendency 
 to thwart Oakley ; but like most gentlemen who 
 love their ease, he had a great horror of being 
 brought into constant collision with disagree- 
 able people ; and it was only the having to do 
 with a person so much to his mind as Germain, 
 that could reconcile him to embarking in such 
 an undertaking. But when he sounded Ger- 
 main on the subject, under a strict injunction 
 of secrecy, the latter rejected it at once, with 
 more decision than he had previously shown on 
 any occasion ; saying that he was himself utterly 
 unfit for it, and that if it was to oppose Oakley, 
 of whose intention of coming forward he had 
 however not been informed, that would be an 
 additional objection. 
 
 And thus matters rested for some time. Lord 
 Latimer was satisfied with himself at having
 
 YES AND NO. 219 
 
 made an effort to overcome his usual inaction in 
 such matters, and went to Newmarket, leaving 
 Lady Latimer to be taken up on his return 
 homewards. This was not an arrangement 
 Lady Boreton had anticipated, though she had 
 herself originated the proposal; in fact, it rather 
 embarrassed her political schemes by keeping 
 up the mixed character of the party; but, on 
 the other hand, it had its advantages; it pre- 
 vented any suspicion of the existence of an 
 electioneering cabal, and whilst Lady Latimer 
 and Germain were allowed to enjoy each other's 
 society, they were not very likely to interfere 
 with any of the Simpkinses or Jenkinses, who, 
 in the character either of busy agents or officious 
 partisans, were constantly coming to consult 
 Lady Boreton and Oakley. 
 
 But the best kept secret will sometimes, as 
 it were, escape under ground, and ooze out at a 
 distance ; and that which had remained a mys- 
 
 l2
 
 220 YES AND NO. 
 
 tery carefully concealed from Lord Latimer 
 whilst under Lady Boreton's roof, he found per- 
 fectly well known at Newmarket, where Jack 
 Stedman, a relation of the old member, and one 
 of the staunch squirearchy who were determined 
 to defend his seat, took hold of Lord Latimer's 
 button at the moment he was most impatient to 
 hedge some indifferent bets, and let him into 
 the determination of his party in the county, by 
 no means to acquiesce in the nomination of 
 Oakley. Rather than allow him to come in 
 without a contest, they intended to start an- 
 other of their own friends, to split votes with 
 Mr. Stedman ; but as they were not anxious to 
 make the attempt to monopolize the two seats, 
 they were ready to give their second votes to 
 any one who might come forward on Lord 
 Latimer's interest; for though they did not ac- 
 knowledge him as quite true blue, there was no 
 comparison between the incipient symptoms of
 
 YES AND NO. 221 
 
 scepticism with which he was afflicted, and the 
 inveterate heresy of such a man as Oakley. 
 
 Lord Latimer having paid dearly for these 
 arguments of Jack Stedman, as they prevented 
 his seizing the opportunity to get out of an 
 awkward betting scrape, he thought it as well 
 to make the most of them, and therefore brought 
 them back v/ith him to Boreton Hall, and made 
 use of them in persuading Germain to revise his 
 determination not to come forward himself for 
 the county, telling him that as far as he might 
 have any scruples in opposing Oakley, the 
 present state of affairs ought to remove those, 
 for that it was now obvious that he would not 
 come in without opposition, and if two of the 
 Stedman party united, the run would of course 
 be entirely against him ; whereas he. Lord La- 
 timer, had refused to make any stipulation of 
 mutual support with either party, and provided 
 his own friend succeeded, it was a matter of
 
 222 YES AND NO. 
 
 indifference to him which of the other two 
 came in. 
 
 Germain had been from the first rather more 
 positive in decHning the proposal, than decided 
 in his dishke to it ; and even had this feehng 
 been originally stronger, it was not in his nature 
 to resist repeated solicitation, particularly when 
 many of the conatei*srt circumstances, which 
 would necessarily arise from his acquiescence, 
 were every way so agreeable to him ; amongst 
 these, not the least of the advantages which he 
 anticipated, was the confirmed intimacy it must 
 produce with the Latimers. 
 
 When, therefore^ Lady Latimer's persuasive 
 tones were joined with those of her lord's, in 
 attempting to convince him, he found it impos- 
 sible any longer to resist ; not that her argu- 
 ments were very elaborate on the subject, but 
 she not only chose the colours for him, but wore 
 them herself that evening ; and her bright eyes
 
 YES AND NO. 223 
 
 shone brighter, and her dark hair looked darker 
 from the bows of the feu d' enf €7' Tibhons, which 
 she had chosen as becoming to herself, and wore 
 as complimentary to him. 
 
 The compunction which Germain might other- 
 wise have experienced at finding himself almost 
 committed in opposition to Oakley, was not a 
 little relieved by the suggestion which he derived 
 from Fitzalbert — whom he consulted on the 
 subject — that if there was any breach of friend- 
 ship between them, the blame must rest with 
 Oakley himself; the reserve and closeness of 
 whose disposition had prevented his ever com- 
 municating his long-formed intentions to his 
 friend and relation, who was living under the 
 same roof with him, and whose property was 
 so situated that his support, if asked, might 
 be of the greatest service to him. " Under these 
 circumstances," added Fitzalbert, " I think you 
 perfectly at liberty either to affect ignorance of
 
 224 YES AND NO. 
 
 his project or not, as may best suit your pur- 
 pose." 
 
 But that was not at all Oakley's view of the 
 proceeding, when it accidentally came to his 
 knowledge. He had long necessarily delayed 
 a public declaration of his own intention, prin- 
 cipally from a dislike to entering upon the 
 duties of canvassing, which he felt must neces- 
 sarily follow, and which he looked forward to 
 as the most irksome part of the whole business. 
 Perhaps, too, he had more reasons than he 
 owned to himself for preferring, at present, a 
 protracted stay with the society at Boreton 
 Hall, to riding about, making the agreeable to 
 all the disagreeable people in the county. 
 
 The morning after Germain had yielded to 
 the desire of his friends, that he should start 
 as a candidate for the county, Oakley had re- 
 tired to the writing corner of the library ; he 
 had at last made up his mind to put forth his
 
 YES AND NO. 225 
 
 public advertisement; somehow or other he 
 had not made any very rapid progress in this 
 production ; what the pecuhar nature might be 
 of those reveries which had so long kept his 
 pen stationary, need no further be defined, than 
 by owning that the sudden appearance of Helen 
 Mordaunt produced an abrupt transition in his 
 turn of thought. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Mr. Oakley," said she, 
 stopping suddenly, " but I thought it had 
 been Lord Latimer, and I came to ask him to 
 frank this letter to my mother." 
 
 " Your mother ! you write frequently to her," 
 enquired Oakley, forgetting that Helen was 
 ignorant of that communication between him- 
 self and Mrs. Mordaunt, which could alone 
 explain so strange a question from him. 
 
 " Every day since I have been separated 
 from her," replied Miss Mordaunt. " When 
 we are together we are all the world to each 
 
 l5
 
 226 YES AND NO. 
 
 Other ; therefore it would be hard now not to 
 enhven her sohtude with a Uttle of my social 
 superfluity, even at the risk of tiring her with 
 ray voluminous gossip." 
 
 " Valuable, indeed, must be the power to 
 preserve a record of the first impressions made 
 by all she sees upon such a mind as Miss Mor- 
 daunt's," said Oakley ; " the interest of the 
 source from which your communications are 
 derived, must soften the painful feelings which 
 must otherwise be excited in your mother's 
 mind, to find the world still what she left it — 
 with a ready hand for the buoyant, a heavy 
 heel for the fallen. But," added he, recovering 
 himself as he became aware that he was hint- 
 ing his knowledge of Mrs. Mordaunt's actual 
 situation, " I am sorry that I cannot assist 
 you with a frank." 
 
 " Perhaps before long you may. I don't know 
 whether I should say I hope so — you know I
 
 YES AND NO. 227 
 
 cannot be against Lady Latimer, and Mr. Ger- 
 main himself is so good-humoured, tliat it is 
 impossible not to wish him success in any thing 
 he attempts." 
 
 " Mr. Germain !" said Oakley, starting up. 
 " Can it be possible that he is to be my 
 opponent?" 
 
 " Perhaps I have said what I ought not," 
 interrupted Miss Mordaunt, alarmed at his ve- 
 hemence. " I heard it mentioned without any 
 injunction of secrecy, yet I dare say I have 
 done wrong to repeat it. My own utter igno- 
 rance of all such subjects must be my excuse. 
 I can now understand the horror my mother 
 has always expressed at the very name of poli- 
 tics, since an allusion to them from one so 
 innocent of oftence as I am, can be capable of 
 producing such an effect." 
 
 " Oh, Miss Mordaunt, you are yet so young 
 in years, younger still in the knowledge of the
 
 228 YES AND NO. 
 
 world ! your gentle nature could not suspect 
 that baseness of which you have unwittingly 
 communicated the most convincing proof. There 
 was but one person I believed incapable of such 
 duplicity, and him I find conspiring to blast the 
 just expectations of his friend." 
 
 " Nay, now, Mr. Oakley, surely this is not 
 fair ; ignorant as I am of the subject, I can at 
 least distinguish that what you are contending 
 for is no man's right, but a free object of am- 
 bition, open to any one ; and I am sure you will 
 recall your imputation of unfairness, when you 
 reflect that what you did not think fit to com- 
 municate to Mr. Germain, he could not be 
 obliged to communicate to you." 
 
 " And is it possible Miss Mordaunt should 
 be the apologist of such conduct ? I had a 
 right to keep my counsel. I could not guess 
 at an intention which he had not then formed ;
 
 YES AND NO. 229 
 
 but he having wormed out my secret, has 
 been working in the dark to counteract my 
 plans." 
 
 How far Helen Mordaunt's strong sense of 
 justice would have overcome her dislike to an 
 argument, and have enabled her gentle nature 
 to contend against Oakley's unmeasured vehe- 
 mence of accusation, whether she would have 
 succeeded in convincing him, for the first time 
 in his life, that he was in the wrong, it is im- 
 possible to say, for their interview abruptly 
 terminated by Lady Flamborough's entrance. 
 
 " Oh, I beg pardon," said she, '* if I inter- 
 rupt any body. Only to put back this portfolio 
 — very prettily copied, is it not, Mr. Oakley ? 
 Miss Mordaunt, my dear. Lady Latimer has 
 been enquiring for you, and she will not guess 
 where to find you, for my girls never come into 
 the library in a morning. You will learn all
 
 230 YES AND NO. 
 
 that in time. And just tell White to send me 
 down my parasol, and take this other portfolio 
 up to my Caroline, that's a good child." 
 
 The disgust with which Oakley listened to 
 this attempt, as he thought it, to treat Miss 
 Mordaunt as a menial dependent, and to em- 
 ploy her as a matter of course in convenient 
 offices, had at once the effect of removing any 
 little feeling of exasj)eration which his irritable 
 nature might otherwise have preserved after 
 their recent dispute. He advanced hastily to- 
 wards the door, and opening it just in time for 
 the well laden messenger, the smile with which 
 he greeted her in passing was assurance enough 
 that he retained no unkind recollection of what 
 had occurred between them. 
 
 Lady Flamborough, it has been remarked, 
 was not very fond of Oakley ; she was also not 
 a little afraid of him, but as she passed him at 
 the door she could not avoid saying : " The 

 
 YES AND NO. 231 
 
 ladies will expect your services after luncheon, 
 Mr. Oakley ; they are now but badly off' for 
 any gentleman to ride with them ; Mr. Ger- 
 main's sudden departure this morning has left 
 you undisputed master of the field." 
 
 " It is neither my wish, nor my ambition, to 
 imitate Mr. Germain, or to interfere with him 
 in any respect," replied Oakley ; and that in a 
 tone which made Lady Flamborough repeat to 
 herself, as she shut the door, " Certainly, the 
 most disagreeable young man I ever knew : and 
 yet, that he should have forty thousand a-year, 
 and Mr. Germain at most only eight — what a 
 pity !" 
 
 " Left the house already," thought Oakley ; 
 " can it be possible that he has actually de- 
 clared himself?" The doubt which this re- 
 flection implied was soon removed by a servant 
 putting into his hand a letter from Germain, 
 which ought to have been given sooner, as it
 
 232 YES AND NO. 
 
 was left by him when he quitted the house at 
 six o'clock that raornino-. It was as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 Dear Oakley, 
 
 I write this in haste to communicate to 
 you my intention of immediately offering my- 
 self as a candidate for the county, at the va- 
 cancy which will occur at the approaching ge- 
 neral election. I should have preferred an- 
 nouncing it to you in person, but as it was 
 only finally decided last night, and you had 
 disappeared before supper, and Lord Latimer's 
 friends were unanimous in thinking it of the 
 utmost importance, that I should not lose the 
 opportunity of showing myself this morning, 
 
 being market-day at , I could only leave 
 
 you these few lines. One of the reasons why 
 I should have been glad to explain myself 
 more fully with you first, was, that it has been
 
 YES AND NO. 233 
 
 rumoured you had some intention of standing 
 yourself; but as this has been some time said, 
 and you have never mentioned it to me, I con- 
 clude that the report is unfounded. At any 
 rate, should I be unhappily opposing myself 
 to you, 1 have the consolation of knowing that 
 you would otherwise have found a more ' stony- 
 hearted adversary;' and I trust I need not 
 assure you, that, consistent with the principles 
 of the party upon whose interest I come for- 
 ward, you may always depend upon any assist- 
 ance from 
 
 Your faithful friend, 
 
 Charles Germain. 
 
 " Faithful friend indeed ! a puppet in the 
 hands of any who please to play upon him," 
 said Oakley. 
 
 He read the letter over again, and it enraged 
 him the more; and that not a litth, perhaps.
 
 234 YES AND NO. 
 
 from his being unable exactly to find out what 
 just cause of complaint it opened to him. 
 When our intentions have never been expressed, 
 any interference with them, however injurious, 
 is hardly offensive, and therefore can scarcely 
 be considered criminal by any code of friend- 
 ship. And though he could not help enter- 
 taining a vague suspicion that Germain was 
 really perfectly well aware of his project, as 
 was indeed the case, yet not only had he no 
 proof of this, but even if he had, as he never, 
 by communicating it himself, had established a 
 trust, there was no breach of confidence. 
 
 He now bitterly repented that he had not 
 taken Lady Boreton's advice, upon no account 
 to delay declaring himself beyond this iden- 
 tical market-day. He had originally declined 
 doino; so from two causes, neither of which he 
 liked to acknowledge : one was, his unwilling-
 
 YES AND NO. 
 
 235 
 
 ness to separate himself from all whom he had 
 met at Boreton Hall ; the other, a jealous dis- 
 like whilst he remained there, to be paraded in 
 public, as " Lady Boreton's new man.'' He 
 was very ready to avail himself of that lady's 
 invaluable exertions in his behalf, but he was 
 very anxious that the distinction should be well 
 understood, that she was engaged in his service, 
 not he in hers. 
 
 But whatever relative weight these two rea- 
 sons might have had in producing this unfor- 
 tunate delay on his part, they could neither 
 now conceal from him the immense advantage 
 that the start would be to Germain, not only 
 with the freeholders, but with that large por- 
 tion of the world who would judge between 
 them without knowing much of the merits of 
 the case, and with that larger portion still, who 
 without judging at all, personally preferred
 
 236 YES AND NO. 
 
 Germain to him. It gave him the appearance 
 of being the aggressor, and of coming in at 
 the eleventh hour, to crush his former friend 
 
 with the weight of his purse, " and will 
 
 not even Helen Mordaunt think so too?" was 
 one of his bitterest reflections. 
 
 But if it had been an effort to Helen Mor- 
 daunt to attempt to prove him in the wrong 
 to his face, she was sure to think him in the 
 risfht when left to herself. She then found 
 out ample excuses for his vehemence in the in- 
 dignation excited in a noble mind by the very 
 idea of duplicity, and all that she could not 
 quite justify in his deportment, was effaced by 
 the recollection of the sweetness of the smile 
 with which he had parted from her. Her na- 
 tural readiness to oblige, had prevented her 
 from being offended at Lady Flamborough's air 
 of protection, in sending her as an errand-girl
 
 YES AND NO. 237 
 
 all over the house ; and as Lady Latimer's 
 manner to her was always the perfection of 
 considerate kindness, she had never been made 
 aware of her dependent situation in society. 
 
 Admiring- Oakley as a sort of superior being, 
 she could not but be gratified at the daily con- 
 sciousness that his manner to her was different 
 from that he maintained with the rest of the 
 world. She had not vet asked herself the 
 cause of this welcome distinction. Sometimes 
 his indistinct allusions and abrupt questions 
 about her mother bewildered her ; for that there 
 could be no personal acquaintance between 
 them, she felt assured from her having herself, 
 till within the last few weeks, remained entirely 
 with her. Could she attribute all that she 
 did not understand in his conduct to the in- 
 terest with which she had herself inspired 
 him ?
 
 238 YES AND NO. 
 
 She opened her letter to her mother, deter- 
 mined to add — she knew not what. Facts 
 she had none to communicate ; and of fancies, 
 what would one sheet contain ? So she closed 
 it again, sealed, and sent it.
 
 YES AND NO. 239 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 And you, that love the Commons, follow me ! 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 The long-expected dissolution of Parliament 
 at length took place. The day of reckoning 
 at length arrived; and M. P.s of every degree 
 were called to render up an account of their 
 conduct, trembling, lest utter extinction should 
 alone suffice to expiate their various offences 
 of every contradictory kind.
 
 240 YES AND NO. 
 
 One has assisted to perpetuate unrepealed 
 millions, upon an overtaxed constituency ; an- 
 other, neglected to procure an exciseman's place 
 for Mr. Jones's wife's second cousin. The name 
 of one is not found in the last hst of minori- 
 ties ; the name of the other was not left with 
 Mr. Mayor last time he was in town. One 
 was squeamish enough to stay away on the 
 nio-ht of his patron's pet job ; another has been 
 suspected of joint-stockery. In short, offences 
 of every sort occur to the recollection of those 
 who still hope for a resurrection in the new 
 Parliament; whilst the desperate shades of 
 departed legislators, for whom there is no hope 
 to rise again, crowd in shoals across (not Cha- 
 ron's ferry, but) the Dover Channel — a destina- 
 tion arising from no longer having the power 
 to put off bills for " six months," whether 
 public or private. 
 
 And now that legislation is again out of
 
 YES AND NO. 241 
 
 lease, new bidders start up on every side; here 
 you may see candidates, like children at puss- 
 in-the-corner, running about in search of a seat ; 
 there, a borough, acting on the principles of 
 free trade, awaiting the ofter of a third man. 
 Great is the flight of wise men of the East 
 over the western road, hastening to take their 
 periodical dip in the Cornish mines, whence 
 they may rise re-lackered as legislators ; a pro- 
 cess for which that district is peculiarly cele- 
 brated. Here you may see an embryo member, 
 who isr obliged to spout by the hour, drink by 
 the dozen, kiss by the hundred, squander by 
 the thousand ; whilst his next-door neighbour 
 quietly sends for his friend from London, walks 
 with him to his own summer-house as a town- 
 hall, where they are proposed by his gardener, 
 seconded by his game-keeper, returned by his 
 butler ; who having, as returning-officer, return- 
 ed his master to the House, returns himself to 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 242 YES AND NO. 
 
 the sideboard, and the two new members 
 drink their own healths tete-a-tete, over a bottle 
 of claret. And yet, though these two modes 
 of proceeding are somewhat different, the pro- 
 duction is the same ; and they equally mould 
 members of Parliament, who equally become 
 representatives of the people of England. The 
 choice of a whole city, paved with heads and 
 lined with faces, count but the same as the de- 
 legate from four dead walls of an old ruin ; 
 nay, like Aladdin's lamp, it is often the old 
 and shabby, dirty and despised, that possess 
 this hidden virtue, which would in vain be 
 sought in new, bright, prosperous-looking pos- 
 sessions of the same kind. A village cobbler in 
 one place, may make members according to his 
 own fancy ; he and all about him, even to the 
 very last : wliilst in another, the employer of 
 hundreds of hands, and the proprietor of a 
 square mile of warehouse, is told, that his in-
 
 YES AND NO. 243 
 
 terests are very safe in the hands of Squire 
 Somebody, the county member, who thinks 
 commerce unconstitutional, and votes against 
 any change in the Corn Laws. 
 
 But, ahhough at the dissection of a dead 
 Parhament, one detects all the rotten parts in 
 the composition of its frame, yet, without dis- 
 puting that it might be better, it is wonder- 
 ful how well the machine works when put to- 
 gether; particularly when one considers, that 
 patriotism is no more the unmixed motive of 
 coming there, than that popular election is the 
 means by which it is effected. Mr. Scraggs 
 comes in, because Mrs. Scraggs was afraid that 
 Mrs. Svyails should take precedence of her as 
 an M. P.'s ladv. One fool wants to frank; 
 another only wishes to go free himself. But, 
 perhaps, the reader may think that this ana- 
 lysis may as well be spared of that which is 
 
 collectively th greatest aggregate of talent, and 
 
 M 2
 
 244 \ES AND NO. 
 
 the nicest criterion of taste, which the ao-e can 
 produce. 
 
 Therefore, to return to one of our heroes — 
 (for though the freeholders of the county will be 
 called on to decide between them, I will not 
 acknowledge a preference for either) — it was 
 at the identical inn where they separated before, 
 that Oakley found himself alone, after a hard 
 day's canvassing. He had begun the day with 
 a brilliant speech at a public meeting, held 
 at one of the principal market-towns in the 
 county. The well-merited applause which his 
 sentiments had there elicited from an admirino- 
 audience, had produced a sensation of exulta- 
 tion, which had gradually subsided under the 
 wearisome duties of the subsequent canvas, 
 during the last two hours of which, his even 
 more than ordinary taciturnity had by degrees 
 worn out the attendant friends and agents who 
 had accompanied him ; and they had severally
 
 YES AND NO. 245 
 
 dropped off, with assurances of being punctual 
 at the place of rendezvous on the morrow. His 
 groom too, he had despatched with an import- 
 ant note to an agent. When therefore, from 
 his horse casting a shoe, he found it would be 
 difficult to reach home that night, he deter- 
 mined to take up his quarters at this inn, which 
 was a sort of neutral ground, for being only a 
 single house in one corner of the county, it had 
 not been taken by any of the parties. 
 
 Here, it happened, he was not known 
 personally, and it never was suspected that the 
 name which filled every corner of the county 
 paper, could belong to the jaded-looking travel- 
 ler, who arrived alone, leading a lame horse ; 
 and no longer having Germain to claim atten- 
 tion for him, he seemed likely to receive even 
 less of it than formerly from the much more oc- 
 cupied inmates of the inn. 
 
 The sight of the room in which he had passed
 
 246 YES AND NO. 
 
 the last evening of fellowship with the com- 
 panion of his youth, excited under present cir- 
 cumstances an unpleasant train of thought. He 
 was about to enter with him into an eas:er, if 
 not angry contest ; and though this species of 
 public competition is far from necessarily lead- 
 ing to permanent estrangement in private, yet 
 he was too justly distrustful of his own temper 
 and disposition, not to be well aware that his 
 was a soil in which the kindly feelings of our 
 nature are of slow growth, requiring careful 
 culture, and therefore to fear that such matter 
 of exasperation would inevitably arise as must 
 prevent Germain and himself from ever again 
 meeting on those terms on which they had for- 
 merly lived. And how was such a friend to be 
 replaced by one of such an unsocial turn as 
 himself? 
 
 It has been often truly said, that uniformity 
 of character is by no means necessary or desir-
 
 YES AND NO. 247 
 
 able in permanent companionship. Germain's 
 mind was fully capable of doing justice to that 
 of his friend, whilst the playful fancy in which 
 his ideas were decked, served to enliven the 
 somewhat sombre colouring which tinged the 
 thoughts of the other ; and the kindly over- 
 flowings of his nature washed away the aspe- 
 rities of Oakley's disposition. And now that 
 these ties were severed, what had he as an equi- 
 valent ? Those with whom he at present asso- 
 ciated were persons with whom nothing but a 
 community of interest during a moment of poli- 
 tical excitement might temporarily connect him. 
 He had that morning, in the course of his pub- 
 lic speech, revelled in those abstract theories 
 of philanthropy and patriotism upon which 
 liberal ideas in politics are founded — but what 
 availed these general doctrines, when he sought 
 in vain for an individual link of sympathy 
 which mio-ht connect him with his kind ?
 
 248 YES AND NO. 
 
 True, there was one gentle nature with whom 
 he would gladly have established a claim to 
 sympathy, which if acknowledged, would 
 amply compensate to him for the indifference 
 of the rest of the world; but here again his 
 evil star seemed to persecute him. He had 
 parted from her in doubt and in darkness, 
 ^and his present residence not only separated 
 her from hin), but placed her in a situation 
 of natural hostility to his wishes. 
 
 All this, and much more from which he 
 liad in vain endeavoured to extract comfort, 
 had passed through his mind before the waiter 
 interrupted his reverie by bringing supper, 
 " Beg pardon. Sir," he said ; " but we're 
 mortal throng at present with this here elec- 
 tion." 
 
 That propriety of deportment which is the 
 peculiar characteristic of the present age, has 
 very much narrowed the field which was open
 
 YES AND NO. 249 
 
 to former writers, of detailing familiar com- 
 munications between different ranks. A dra- 
 matist of the present day, for instance, is com- 
 pletely debarred from indulging in that alter- 
 nation of confidence and caning with servants 
 which formed so much of the dialogue and ac- 
 tion of the old plays. If a gentleman now-a-days 
 ever does unbend, it is as likely as not with a 
 waiter at an inn, when, for want of other com- 
 pany, he lets himself out for the night for a few 
 shillings' worth of familiarity. 
 
 Oakley, generally speaking, was very little 
 likely to give into even this temporary conde- 
 scension ; but, besides that his own thoughts 
 had not been, as we have seen, very pleasant 
 company, he felt the general, though danger- 
 ous desire to which all are subject, to avail him- 
 self of an opportunity to hear himself talked 
 over by a person to whom he was unknown. 
 
 He therefore detained the waiter, and gave 
 
 M 5
 
 250 YES AND NO. 
 
 him an opening to continue the conversation by 
 saying: "I should have thought that here 
 you were quite out of the way of the election, 
 and knew or cared nothing about any of the 
 candidates." 
 
 His present attendant was not slow to avail 
 himself of the privilege of talking, though not 
 in the flippant frothy style of a southern knight 
 of the napkin, but with the true deliberate 
 drawl of the north country. 
 
 " Lord, sur, there's not a man, woman, or 
 choild in all the country round, but has made 
 a bit of a favourite of one of them; and as for 
 our house, we're no two of a moind here. 
 There's Betty Chambermaid all for Germain, 
 because his colours are prattyest for to look on. 
 Cook's all for ould Squire Stedman, because 
 he's most against the Pope's roasting-alive 
 consarn. As for me, from what I sees in the 
 papers of Squire Oakley's talk, I conceits him
 
 YES AND NO. 231 
 
 the most, only I doubt its all gammon he 
 says." 
 
 " Why so?" enquired Oakley. 
 
 " Why, you see, he talks a deal about li- 
 berty and natural rights, and that all property 
 is only in trust for the public ; — well, he's got- 
 ten a mortal foine place, and park, and gardens, 
 such as thare's not the loike in the county, and 
 he wont let a living soul get a soight of it, 
 though master might have five pair of horses 
 out a-day, I dare say, of boithing company 
 
 from going cross country to see it. And 
 
 much harm that would do. Then, as to eco- 
 nomy which he preaches, I doubt he practises 
 that better : it's nothing to me that for certain, 
 for the more as don't dine with him tlie more 
 may come here. But I am tould that neither 
 man, woman, nor choild, have ever had their 
 trotters under his mahogany." 
 
 " Get me some more mutton-chops," said
 
 252 YES AND NO. 
 
 Oakley, whose pleasure in the conversation had 
 quite ceased. The waiter obediently retired, but 
 to return no more, as the arrival of a carriage- 
 and-four more worthily occupied his attention ; 
 and the fresh mutton-chops were carelessly con- 
 signed to Betty Chambermaid, who, flaunting 
 in a cap covered with Germain's ribbons, tossed 
 them upon the table. 
 
 Wearied and dissatisfied, Oakley retired 
 early to-bed to prepare for the fatigues of the 
 next day ; but upon coming down in the morn- 
 ing to the sitting-room, where he had been the 
 night before, he found it occupied. Breakfast 
 was already laid, and a lady was standing at the 
 window with her back towards him. He was 
 hastily retiring, when, upon her turning round, 
 to his surprise he beheld Helen Mordaunt. 
 
 *' Miss Mordaunt ! and alone ! Can it be 
 possible?" 
 
 " Only alone," said she, " from too im-
 
 YES AND NO. 253 
 
 plicit a faith in Lord and Lady Latimer's inten- 
 tion of early rising. I arrived here late last 
 night with them ; we had been detained on the 
 road for hours, and therefore could not reach 
 
 , where we are going, in order to be more in 
 
 the way of hearing the news of of " 
 
 " Of the election,'' added Oakley, observing 
 that she hesitated to mention the subject — " to 
 be ready to triumph in my final defeat, after 
 seeing me die by inches," — he continued in a 
 tone that was meant, though not very success- 
 fully, for careless banter. 
 
 " Nay, you cannot wish me seriously to 
 defend myself from such an imputation," she 
 replied, detecting through his assumed pleasan- 
 try a little soreness about it. " Or why should 
 that be the feeling of any of our party ? You 
 forget that only one need fail, and I am sure I 
 hope that you will come in with Mr. Ger- 
 
 main."
 
 2o4 YES AND NO. 
 
 " Then, provided he is safe, I may flatter 
 myself that my chance is a matter of indif- 
 ference to Miss Mordaunt?" 
 
 " You are determined, I see, to misconstrue 
 all I say upon the subject; and as that igno- 
 rance I have always professed about it makes it 
 the easier for you to do so, I will say nothing 
 more — but let me take this opportunity of con- 
 veying to you my mother's thanks for all your 
 kindness to me when we met at Boreton. In a 
 letter I lately received from her, she says : 
 ' Pray tell Mr. Oakley how much his kindness 
 to my child doubles the obligations I already 
 owe him.' You know her then, Mr. Oakley, 
 and have perhaps endeavoured to cheer her occa- 
 sional melancholy, and wondered with me, why 
 she is not as happy as she deserves to be?" 
 
 " And what did Mrs. Mordaunt mean by 
 my particular kindness to you?" inquired Oak- 
 ley, and for a moment an unworthy suspicion of
 
 YES AND NO. 255 
 
 the mother's manceuvring for her daughter 
 came across him; but he quickly banished it, 
 as altogether misplaced, and continued : " If 
 it was attempting to monopolize the only 
 society in which I found pleasure, that ought 
 rather to be punished as selfishness, than re- 
 warded with thanks." 
 
 In most mouths this would have been a mere 
 common-place compliment ; but Oakley could 
 not have said it if he had not thought it ; and 
 therefore the whole tone of its delivery was 
 different, coming from him, and its effect might 
 have been proportionate, but that at this mo- 
 ment Lady Latimer opened the door, and be- 
 held, not a little bewildered at seeino; that 
 which of all things that had " a local habitation 
 and a name" she least expected — the full length 
 figure of Ernest Oakley. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said he, rather con- 
 fusedly ; " it was quite an unintentional in-
 
 256 YES AND NO. 
 
 trusion on my part. I was shown into the 
 room last night, and returned to it as a matter 
 of course this morninof." 
 
 " Pray let us profit by the mistake," gra- 
 ciously replied Lady Latimer, " by your staying 
 to breakfast with us. We will not poison you. 
 Breakfast is a notoriously innocent meal; a 
 dinner is more dangerous, and bears the stamp 
 of party. A cabinet-dinner governs our own 
 country ; a public-dinner saves foreign patriots 
 abroad ; but breakfast is entirely without mean- 
 ing, and compromises no man's political prin- 
 ciples. So pray sit down." 
 
 Oakley, excusing himself on the score of 
 hurrv, retreated towards the door, and was met 
 on the threshold by Lord Latimer, ushered in 
 by the waiter, who, turning towards him, in- 
 formed him that his hat was in the traveller's 
 room. Lord Latimer bowed civilly, looking at 
 first rather puzzled, and afterwards not a little
 
 YES AND NO. 257 
 
 amused at the waiter's cool treatment of a man 
 of Oakley's character and importance. 
 
 When the mistake was explained to him — 
 " A good omen !" said Lord Latimer ; " we shall 
 be the means of turning him out of another 
 public house too," and after that thought no 
 more about it. 
 
 Not so Helen — and yet why should each 
 succeeding interview with Oakley have left a 
 strono-er impression upon her? All that he had 
 ever said would hardly amount to an avowal of 
 common-place interest, and yet she felt assured 
 that common-place was not the characteristic of 
 his conduct towards her. Hers was no singular 
 case. If nothing has been here recorded to justify 
 that conviction on her part, it is because it is 
 impossible to trv bv the test of words that which 
 purposely avoids the responsibility of speech, 
 those thousand little nameless attentions which 
 too often by implying attachment create it in
 
 258 YES AND NO. 
 
 return ; whilst, shunning verbal explanation, they 
 evade every thing of the compromising nature of 
 an enoagement. 
 
 Oakley's conduct, such as it was, had such 
 an effect ; though I am far from asserting that 
 it orio-inated in such an intention.
 
 YES AND NO. 
 
 259 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Cry the man mercy ; love him, take his offer. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 Germain in the mean time proceeded prosper- 
 ously with his canvass ; to go through all the 
 various duties of this busy time was to him 
 much less of an effort than to Oakley. Some 
 amused him, others gratified his vanity, and as 
 they all were the source of active occupation 
 and excitement, he never felt happier than whilst 
 engaged in them, which feeling enabled him to 
 perform them not only more easily, but more 
 effectually than if he had considered them as 
 a drudgery.
 
 260 YES AND NO. 
 
 He evidently rather liked ridino- about with 
 a concourse of followers, and being a great man 
 wherever he went ; and even the cry of " Ger- 
 main for ever!" with which little blackguard 
 boys strained their tiny throats as he rode 
 through the villao-e, was not altogether an un- 
 pleasant sound to him. He was moreover an 
 excellent listener, a first-rate qualification in a 
 candidate ; and during the allotted period of 
 each visit, he could sit with a face of intense 
 interest whilst the topics that had been got up 
 for his reception were regularly gone through. 
 It was the same to him whether the subject 
 matter was foreign or domestic — there he sat in 
 silent acquiescence. 
 
 He had moreover a ready eye for any thing 
 purposely put up to be admired, whether of 
 furniture or family ; and no one had ever the 
 mortification of reflecting after he went away, 
 that any thing done to attract his attention had 
 failed in its object.
 
 YES AND NO. 261 
 
 He was an amazing favourite with all the 
 young ladies — they hardly knew why. Mr. Oak- 
 ley was at least as handsome, but it was Mr, 
 Germain who looked as if he thought them 
 handsome. 
 
 One of his most active coadjutors in the 
 business of canvassing, was Mr. Macdeed, the 
 
 celebrated solicitor of , who it will be 
 
 recollected was excessively offended with the 
 reception Oakley gave him after Lord Rocking- 
 ton's death. His zeal therefore had the double 
 incitement of dislike to the rival candidate, and 
 desire to establish himself in the good graces of 
 Lord Latimer, by whom he had been recently 
 employed, in consequence of the talent he had 
 formerly displayed on the other side, in the 
 famous cause of Rockinoton v. Latimer. 
 
 The course of their circuit had brought Ger- 
 main and Mr. Macdeed to a part of the county 
 which the former full well remembered, when
 
 262 YES AM) NO. 
 
 Mr. jNIacdeed addressed him thus : " I suppose 
 we may as well just call there, though I am 
 afraid it will be to very little purpose ; I have 
 him down in my list — ' Rev. Mr. Dormer, sup- 
 posed plumper for Stedman.' " 
 
 " I have no doubt you are wrong there," said 
 Germain ; " Mr. Dormer is an old and very 
 particular friend of mine.*' 
 
 " Well, we'll try," replied the other, " but I 
 know he has a most particular horror of ' the 
 damnable doctrine.' It is a pity, Mr. Germain, 
 that you and Lord Latimer could not have made 
 up your mind to some sort of vague * no popery 
 phrases' in your address ; you would have been 
 quite safe then, and I would have undertaken to 
 have so worded it that it need not hereafter have 
 been inconvenient under other circumstances." 
 
 " It is just as well as it is," was all that 
 Germain replied, his prudence inducing him to 
 repress the indignation he really felt at the pro-
 
 -VES AND NO. 263 
 
 posal. As they approached Rosedale Rectory, 
 though its general view from a distance was 
 still the same, the details disappointed him. 
 Could that be the stile looking into the lane 
 over which he used to lean with Fanny, and 
 that the green path which led to it, all ending 
 in a muddy puddle ? The rector's plantation 
 too was much thinner, and more transparent — 
 why, he was sure one never used to see the pig- 
 stye through it. As they rode up to the door, 
 they passed his study-window and the little 
 o-arden beneath where he used to see Fanny day 
 after day watering the roses — they had been suc- 
 ceeded by cabbages. This rather touched him — 
 perhaps she had never sought the spot since his 
 departure. 
 
 " Poor Fanny !" thought he, " how glad she 
 will be to see me again !" 
 
 They were ushered in. Mr. Dormer had 
 walked out into the village, yet Fanny was not
 
 264 YES AND NO. 
 
 alone. They found with her, in what was com- 
 monly called the parlour, a short thick-set man, 
 about forty, with rather a biUous tinge, and a 
 bald head and immense whiskers ; it would have 
 been impossible to guess at his profession from 
 his dress, for while a new bright-green single- 
 breasted jacket with brass buttons looked rural, 
 a stiff black stock seemed military, while sundry 
 spots of ink upon pale shrunk nankeen trowsers 
 indicated connexion with the counter. 
 
 Fanny's cheeks once more rivalled in brilliancy 
 those less congenial spots which in colour had 
 lately eclipsed them, as she advanced to meet 
 Germain, and introduced him to Captain Wilcox, 
 saying at the same time that her father would 
 soon return. 
 
 " Won't you please to be seated ? Pray take 
 a chair, gentlemen," said the captain. 
 
 Germain bowed assent, saying to himself, 
 " And who, I wonder, are you ? I should think
 
 YES AND NO. 265 
 
 I might make myself at home here without 
 asking your leave." 
 
 He recalled the whole line of cousins he had 
 ever heard either Mr. or Miss Dormer lay claim 
 to, and though it had been a topic of rather 
 frequent recurrence, he could not recollect the 
 name of Wilcox amongst the number. 
 
 ** Seasonable weather," said Fanny to Mr. 
 Macdeed, on one side of the table. 
 
 " Unseasonable weather," said Captain Wil- 
 cox to Mr. Germain on the other ; and they had 
 only both just assented to these contradictory 
 propositions, when Mr. Dormer himself returned, 
 and after shaking hands cordially with Germain, 
 thus addressed Mr. Macdeed : " Mr. Macdeed, 
 I presume; busy time, Mr. Macdeed," 
 
 A whisper then passed between him and 
 Fanny, accompanied by the consignment of a 
 key, which led to an immediate jingling of 
 glasses in a corner cupboard in the next room, 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 266 YES AND NO. 
 
 and to more ostensible effects in a later period 
 of the visit. 
 
 Mr. Dormer then drew his chair towards Ger- 
 main's, and after hemming to clear his voice 
 began : " Mr. Germain, as you are a candidate 
 on your canvass, perhajos it is not too much to 
 presume that it is the object of your visit to 
 request my vote?" 
 
 . Germain having assented in a few words about 
 the gratifying support of an old friend, and Mr. 
 Macdeed having contrived to edge in *' the im- 
 portant point in their favour that it would be," 
 Mr. Dormer resumed : — 
 
 " It is my maxim — I may be wrong — that a 
 conscientious man should always act according 
 to his conscience." 
 
 After allowing a pause for contradiction he 
 continued : — 
 
 " A public trust can hardly be said to mean 
 private advantage."
 
 YES AND NO. 267 
 
 Another pause, producing acquiescence. 
 
 " Those who are most attached to our inva- 
 luable constitution, would not wish to destroy 
 it." 
 
 " Certainly," said Germain. 
 
 " Undoubtedly," added Mr. Macdeed. 
 
 " Of all our establishments those v/hich par- 
 take of a holy character, ought to be the most 
 sacred." 
 
 Still there seemed to Germain to be no room 
 for dispute, though he remembered enough of 
 the illogical nature of his good friend's mind, 
 to know that he disdained the regular steps of 
 reasoning, and that after piling up these dis- 
 jointed scraps of truism till he had sufficiently 
 exalted himself, he would jump at once to his 
 conclusion, however far he might appear from 
 it. And so it turned out; for after stringing 
 together a few more such sentences — without 
 allowing Germain the opportunity he wished 
 
 ' N 2
 
 268 YES AND NO. 
 
 for, of protesting that he yielded to no man in 
 attachment to the Church of England, and 
 that he thought he best supported its interests, 
 and maintained its integrity, by removing from 
 it the stigma of intolerance — he announced his 
 intended support of Stedman as the Protestant 
 champion. 
 
 " But," added he, " I should only half dis- 
 charge my duty, if I did not recollect that I 
 have another vote." 
 
 " To be sure you would," said Germain. 
 
 " That's the point at issue, my good friend," 
 said Mr. Macdeed. 
 
 " And I am happy to say, Mr. Germain, that 
 my public duties, and my personal- feelings here 
 coincide in inducing me to give the preference to 
 you over your competitor." 
 
 Germain expressed himself properly on the 
 subject, but somehow he did not feel as grateful 
 as he ought. It was not only that he would
 
 YES AND NO. 269 
 
 have preferred Oakley to Stedman, and therefore 
 was not quite satisfied, but somehow he had 
 calculated upon being the first object with Mr. 
 Dormer. He could not help thinking, that his 
 old friend used not to be quite so great a 
 twaddler. 
 
 " Mr. Dormer has spoken my sentiments too, 
 to a T," said Captain Wilcox. 
 
 " And what right," thought Germain, *' can 
 you have to any sentiments on the subject?" 
 
 " You are put up, I believe, by Lord Latimer, 
 sir," continued the captain ; " I should be very 
 happy to oblige his lordship, he spoke so hand- 
 somely of our Indian army, in seconding the 
 address in the House of Lords a few years 
 ago. I remember the circumstance, because a 
 friend of mine, at the mess, objected to an ex- 
 pression of his lordship's, that that army run 
 second to none on the field of glory. ' Ran,' 
 said my friend, ' is an odd compliment,' but I
 
 270 YES AND NO. 
 
 explained that it was a metaphor borrowed from 
 his lordship's sporting pursuits, and accompa- 
 nied by many other favourable expressions." 
 
 Though the offensive and unconstitutional 
 phrase, " put up by Lord Latimer," was some- 
 what explained by the long residence in India 
 afterwards admitted, which might account for 
 ignorance on such a subject, yet Germain felt 
 inclined to be angry at his talking at all about 
 it, when Mr. Macdeed skilfully whispered to 
 him : " Just bought a property in the county, 
 (I remember now,) commanding twenty votes." 
 
 Germain immediately replied, that he should 
 be happy to take an opportunity of introducing 
 him personally to Lord Latimer, to whose merits 
 he did no more than justice. 
 
 Still he felt puzzled to account for the rela- 
 tion in which he stood to Mr. Dormer. For 
 upon the entry of a tray, with wine and cakes, 
 he it was who undertook to do the honours of
 
 YES AND NO. 271 
 
 Mr. Dormer's old port, to which Mr. Macdeed 
 seeaied inclined to do even more justice than 
 canvassing civiUty required ; Mr. Dormer, help- 
 ing himself to a glass, said: "Church and 
 King, Mr. Macdeed ; I am sure you would not 
 wish to separate them." 
 
 " Only inasmuch as I should prefer two 
 glasses of your port to one," replied Mr. Mac- 
 deed, chuckling at his own smartness. 
 
 In the meantime Fanny, addressing Germain, 
 said : " Perhaps, Mr. Germain, you think that 
 we know nothing here of your electioneering 
 bustle, but a friend of mine sent me one of the 
 hand-bills about you all yesterday, in which I 
 hope that the omen of your success may be 
 more true than the idea of your character is 
 just." 
 
 It was as pointless, and at the same time, as 
 personal as political squibs upon such occasions 
 usually are. It was called, « Effervescent
 
 272 YES AND NO. 
 
 Draught for the County." Oakley was de- 
 scribed as the acid, S ted man as the alkali, and 
 Germain the froth which the collision of the 
 other two would make to float at the top. 
 
 But if it had been a much more poignant 
 production, the contents of that paper would 
 have then had no effect upon Germain, for the 
 envelope that had just been given to him by 
 Fanny was directed to " Mrs. Captain Wilcox!" 
 
 Mrs. Captain Wilcox ! was it possible that 
 Fanny Dormer, whose taste had once been so 
 refined, whose young heart had once shown a 
 proper sensibility to his merits, should ever have 
 consented to become Mrs. Captain Wilcox ? 
 It was not for himself he cared. It was evident 
 last time they met, that he had completely out- 
 grown any remains of his former weakness, 
 but he could not bear that one who had once 
 shown a discriminating preference for better 
 things, should have been so perverted.
 
 YES AND NO. 273 
 
 But Germain was wrong. Captain Wilcox 
 was essentially a vulgar man ; but that which 
 offended Germain at the first glance, appeared 
 to Mr. Dormer and his daughter, the manner of 
 a man who had lived in the world, and his vul- 
 garity once overlooked, he had many redeeming 
 pomts ; he was indeed, as Mr. Dormer always 
 confided to every body soon after introducing 
 him, " a most worthy man, the captain." He 
 had reahzed a fair fortune by his prudence in 
 the East, without suffering either in liver or 
 character, and was now^ prepared to spend his 
 money comfortably in his own county. 
 
 As a useful assistant in such a scheme, he 
 had made up to Fanny Dormer, whom he met 
 
 amono; the sea-bathers at , soon after 
 
 Germain had left that watering-place. The 
 courtship was concise but effectual. They had 
 been married soon after their return to Rosedale, 
 an event that had escaped Germain's notice dur- 
 
 N 5
 
 274 YES AND NO. 
 
 ino- his agreeable sojourn at Boreton Hall. 
 They were likely, till the captain's new house 
 was built, to continue their residence at the 
 rectory ; and the afternoon flow of the rector's old 
 port was not a little helped by his own somewhat 
 soporific anecdotes of the trout-fishing in his 
 own stream, being now interspersed with the 
 captain's tales of tiger-hunting on the banks of 
 the Ganges. 
 
 Mr. Dormer accompanying Germain to the 
 outer door, took that opportunity of saying : 
 " You have not yet congratulated me upon your 
 old friend Fanny's happiness — a most worthy 
 man, the captain." 
 
 " So he seems," said Germain, without ex- 
 actly reflecting how a man seems " most worthy" 
 in a short morning visit. Any other equally 
 sincere expressions on the subject, were pre- 
 vented by Fanny herself following them to the 
 door ; and there she stood on the same threshold
 
 YES AND NO. 275 
 
 where, in former times, she had bounded for- 
 ward to meet his return, while springy seven- 
 teen gave elasticity to her already well-rounded 
 form, and the coming breeze which played 
 amons her careless locks disclosed the whole 
 contour of her fine open countenance, and the 
 glad smile of welcome just parted her ruby 
 lips enough to show the dazzling whiteness of 
 her teeth. Now, as Germain took a parting 
 glance in riding from the door, he only thought 
 •' What a figure she will have by the time she 
 is the mother of half-a-dozen little Wilcoxes !
 
 276 YES AND NO. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 There shall be no money; all shall eat and drink on my 
 
 score ; and I will apparel them all in one livery, that they 
 
 may agree like brothers, and worship me their lord. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 The day of election at length arrived, and all 
 the parties attended at the appointed place, 
 each confidently anticipating a successful re- 
 sult. Of Oakley and Germain the reader al- 
 ready knows rather more than most electors do 
 of their candidates ; but Mr. Stedman requires 
 some further notice, and as he was not a man 
 ever to say much for himself, something must 
 be said for him.
 
 YES AND NO. 277 
 
 He was, perhaps, the most inveterately silent 
 man that ever was sent to assist in a dehberative 
 assembly ; true, as the county member, he was 
 called upon between four and five o'clock to 
 take a great deal of walking exercise, in con- 
 veying petitions and bills from one part of 
 the House to another, but the moment public 
 business commenced, he became as stationary 
 as the pillars against which he leaned, and 
 thus he sat in sleepy silence, scorning to speak, 
 equally disdaining to listen. So determined 
 an enemy was he to the principles of free trade, 
 that having brought a certain stock of home- 
 made ideas with him into the House, he bonded 
 them up, equally prohibiting his tongue to cir- 
 culate those, or his ears to import others. 
 Every progressive improvement he viewed se- 
 parately, as if arising abruptly out of a state of 
 things that existed forty years ago, and there- 
 fore, no doubt, considering it as an uncalled
 
 278 YES AND NO. 
 
 for innovation, met it with a decided, though 
 not expressive negative. He had a sovereign 
 contempt for his late colleague, Mr. Medium, 
 who, without attending much more acutely to 
 the march of events, wislied to be thought to 
 have his own ideas about it, and therefore was 
 constantly and unaccountably trimming back- 
 wards and forwards. 
 
 Mr. Stedman was of course supported by all 
 that numerous class, who, content with the 
 security of their own selfish comforts, avoid 
 even thinking of the grievances of others, lest 
 an attempt to relieve them (for any thing they 
 know to the contrary) might diminish the value 
 of the peculiar advantages they now enjoy. 
 Oakley, on the other hand, was supported by 
 all those with whom innovation and improve- 
 ment are synonymous. Germain was upheld 
 by many mixed motives, though none perhaps 
 actuating such large bodies as the other two.
 
 YES AND MO. 279 
 
 And now from every side were crowding into 
 the county-town immense bodies of those to 
 whom was committed the exercise of an Eng- 
 lishman's proudest boast — the elective fran- 
 chise. Most of them had, according to im- 
 memorial custom, been clearing their intellects 
 for a free choice by unlimited potations at the 
 cost of one or other of the candidates. 
 
 Here on one side, as far as the eye could 
 reach, stretched a long line of the " true blues," 
 bearing: briUiant banners, on which were in- 
 scribed, " Stedman and the Constitution !" 
 " Protestant Cause !" " No Popery !" " Church 
 and State !" and many other such " wise saws," 
 which, with other equally valuable appropria- 
 tions, the hioh Tories have for some time ar- 
 rogated to themselves as their property. 
 
 On another side were seen equally dense 
 masses, decorated with green ribbons, bear- 
 ing on their ensigns, " Oakley and Liberty !"
 
 280 YES AND NO. 
 
 " Oakley and "Reform !" and sundry other more 
 enigmatical watch-words, such as " Magna 
 Charta!" " Bill of Rights!" which, as they 
 are brought out well- dusted, and displayed in 
 times either of stagnation or scarcity, are sup- 
 posed by many who bear them, to mean either 
 " high wages," or " cheap bread." 
 
 Germain's partizans shone in the brilliancy of 
 their symbolical colouring, but they were terri- 
 bly in want of an appropriate watch-word, the 
 politics of the party not possessing sufficient 
 force to distil themselves into ardent axioms ; 
 "Germain and Independence!" was therefore 
 singularly enough chosen as the most apposite 
 motto. 
 
 There was an interval of a few minutes after 
 the parties had met, before they appeared upon 
 the hustings. Germain took advantage of 
 this opportunity, to advance towards Oakley. 
 " Though I never received any answer.
 
 YES AND NO. 281 
 
 Oakley," said he, " to those few hnes which 
 I wrote to you, explanatory of my inten- 
 tion of appearing here to-day, yet I can easily 
 attribute any such omission to the sufficiently- 
 engrossing occupation in which we have both 
 since been engaged ; and therefore hope that our 
 competition is entirely political, not personal." 
 
 " How far it may be at all political, I am 
 at a loss to tell," answered Oakley ; " since I 
 can hardly ever remember to have heard you 
 express any political opinions. What personal 
 inducements you may have had I as little know 
 as care." 
 
 It was actually very true, as Oakley said, 
 that Germain had never appeared to take any 
 deep interest in politics ; nor is this strange, in 
 a young man just of age, to whom no career 
 in that line was yet open, and to whom every 
 other enjoyment of society was still fresh. 
 
 " Perhaps you wish," said Germain, good-
 
 282 YES AND NO. 
 
 humouredly, " that I had taken some other 
 opportunity to make up lost time as a politician ; 
 but at any rate, when you talk of personal in- 
 ducement, I hope you acquit me of having 
 wantonly interposed to thwart you?" 
 
 " In a case entirely between ourselves, if I 
 do not choose to accuse, I can hardly be re- 
 quired to acquit. But see, the sheriff expects 
 us." 
 
 " Well, you shall not quarrel with me, Oak- 
 ley, if I can help it, however much you seem 
 to wish it." 
 
 " I have not the slightest wish on the sub- 
 ject," replied Oakley coldly ; and here the con- 
 versation ended. 
 
 The business of the day was regularly opened. 
 Mr. Stedman was proposed and seconded in a 
 few words by two gentlemen who seemed, like 
 their principal, to apply their horror of any thing
 
 YES AND NO. 
 
 283 
 
 new even to their speeches, and therefore only 
 repeated the same sentences, which at the last 
 dissolution had been found to produce the de- 
 sired etfect. 
 
 Then, amidst much uproar. Squire Stedman 
 presented himself. He had not, as may be 
 imagined, much to say, and therefore it was 
 perhaps an exercise of political candour on the 
 part of his opponents, to take good care 
 so to interrupt him as to keep him standing, 
 hat in hand, the usual length of a speech. For 
 no one could deny that he looked " the Agri- 
 cultural Interest" to perfection. As a repre- 
 sentative of the soil, he carried an acre or two 
 of it upon his boots and leather breeches; a 
 flock of sheep would hardly have sufficed for 
 the ample folds of his cumbrous coat, and the 
 few straggling hairs which the wind shook out 
 of the mass of powder and pomatum with which
 
 284 YES AND NO. 
 
 his head was amply manured, showed the care 
 and cost at which poor soils should be cul- 
 tivated. 
 
 During- the period he thought it necessary to 
 ■remain standing, whenever a comparative calm 
 occurred, he had recourse to one of the watch- 
 words from his own banners, to appear as if he 
 had been speaking all the while — " Support our 
 invaluable constitution" — loud applause — louder 
 yells — " As in duty bound the Protestant 
 Church" — increased tumult. " Wisdom of our 
 
 ancestors." — " Go to them and be d d," 
 
 cried one voice. — " Ax them about spinning- 
 jennies," cried another. — " They've less land on 
 their hands than you have on yours. Squire," 
 said a third ; and amidst enthusiastic applause 
 from his own party, Mr. Stedman retired. 
 
 Germain, as the one who had first offered 
 himself upon the present vacancy, was next 
 proposed and seconded by two gentlemen-like
 
 YES AND NO. 285 
 
 young men who possessed good property in the 
 county, appeared in new French gloves, with 
 which they stroked down their well-brushed 
 hats whilst they made two very neat speeches, 
 of which not one syllable could be heard, but 
 which were, strange to say, very accurately re- 
 ported in the next county paper. 
 
 Germain spoke sensibly, and was heard fa- 
 vourably, but not received enthusiastically ; for 
 moderation in language, though very distinct 
 in character from mediocrity in intellect, is not 
 unlike it in its deadening effects upon the spirits 
 of a crowd ; and he who has one man's head in 
 his face, and two men's elbows in his sides, had 
 rather have his prejudices flattered, and his 
 passions excited, than his reason convinced. 
 
 Sir John Boreton had at last, after much 
 doubt and deliberation, been entrusted with the 
 task of proposing Oakley. Lady Boreton had 
 carefully written out for him on the back
 
 286 YES AND NO. 
 
 of a card the heads of wliat he was to say, and 
 he bad rehearsed it to her surprisingly well, 
 considering all things; but upon the hustings 
 an unexpected dilemma occurred. Sir John 
 could not read without spectacles, and in the 
 confusion and anxiety of the moment, after 
 fumbling unsuccessfully in every pocket, (no 
 very oratorical action,) he could not find them ; 
 he muttered a few words, ending in " Ernest 
 Oakley, esquire," and cast an imploring look 
 at Lady Boreton, who was posted at a window 
 on the opposite side of the court. 
 
 Her ladyship came to his relief, by waving a 
 small green silk flag, a signal which was an- 
 swered by the cheers of the populace, and the 
 seconder luckily took the opportunity of stepping 
 in before Sir John and taking his place. He 
 was much habituated to this sort of thing, be- 
 ing a master-manufacturer, who dealt in pins
 
 YES AND NO. 287 
 
 and politics, and talking was part of his trade. 
 He dwelt much upon the merits of his " honour- 
 able friend, Mr, Oakley." 
 
 Now, though Oakley was prepared politically 
 to stretch a fraternal hand of fellowship cor- 
 dially to all his constituents, enough has been 
 seen of him for it to be supposed that there 
 was something grating to his not over-easy 
 nature in the idea of the individual familiarity 
 of Mr. Sims, and though, as the occasion re- 
 quired, he smothered this feeling as far as he 
 could, yet it rather interfered with the freedom 
 with which he commenced his address. 
 
 But Oakley was gifted with great natural 
 eloquence : that vehemence of manner, too, which 
 in private often hazarded offence, in public car- 
 ried conviction ofhis earnest sincerity, and the mo- 
 dulated intonations ofhis fine voice alone, seemed 
 to challenge concurrence in his opinions. A fine
 
 288 YES ANT) NO. 
 
 burst of natural eloquence, from its mere sound, 
 ensures spontaneous admiration, like the rush of 
 a mountain-torrent, independent either of the 
 course it takes, or of the depth it covers. Many 
 parts of his speech were certainly pecuharly in- 
 discreet in the situation in which he at pre- 
 sent stood, as tending personally to exasperate 
 ao-ainst him, the supporters of each of the 
 other candidates, and therefore being likely to 
 lead to a union which would be very mjurious 
 to his interests. 
 
 He was particularly severe upon the vehement 
 conduct of some of the clerical partisans of one 
 of the rival candidates, who, he said, " with 
 Christian charity as their motto, and political 
 power as their pursuit, came there to persecute 
 him for refusing to persecute those whose mere 
 doctrinal differences of religion they made the 
 o-round of perpetual exclusion here, which he
 
 YES AND NO. 289 
 
 dared them in the boldest flight of arrogated in- 
 falUbihty to assume, would be the ground of 
 any eternal distinction hereafter." 
 
 But as this work is not meant either as a 
 copy or continuation of harangues at public 
 meetings, and as the speeches of the other can- 
 didates have not been detailed, neither shall this 
 part of Oakley's, nor the concluding portion, 
 in which he expressed unmingied contempt 
 for the sort of middle line adopted by one of 
 his competitors, who, with neither the curse of ig- 
 norance or intemperance, and with sense enough 
 to perceive the right line, had not virtue enough 
 to follow it. 
 
 This was certainly not conciliatory. But at 
 the time its effect was rather imposing ; it looked 
 like strength, and a superior disregard of adven- 
 titious assistance. Upon the show of hands, the 
 decided majorities were for Oakley and Stedman. 
 
 VOL. I. o
 
 290 ■ YES AND NO. 
 
 A poll was demanded for Germain, and at its 
 close on the first day, the numbers were de- 
 clared as follow : — 
 
 Oakley .... 634 
 
 Stedman . . . 586 
 
 Germain . . . 401
 
 YES AND NO. 291 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 1st Officer. How many stand for consulships? 
 
 2nd Officer. Three, they say; but 'tis thought of every one 
 Coriolanus will carry it. There have been many great men 
 that have flattered the people, who ne'er loved them ; and 
 there be many that they have loved they know not wherefore ; 
 so that, if they love they know not why, they hate upon no 
 better ground : therefore, for Coriolanus neither to care whe- 
 ther they love or hate him, manifests the true knowledge he 
 has in their disposition ; and out of his noble carelessness, 
 plainly lets them see't. 
 
 Shakspe.\re. 
 
 " I HOPE you saw our friend Lady Boreton," 
 said Fitzalbert, who had come in on horseback 
 from Latimer to see the fun ; " there she was, 
 fixed to the spot, but waving about Hke Daphne 
 upon the turn, green even to the tips of her 
 
 o 2
 
 292 YES AND NO. 
 
 fingers. Well, she is a most formidable anta- 
 gonist ; for if she has not a vote, at least she 
 has a voice. That savage, Oakley — I think he 
 showed very little regard for his former friend in 
 the language he used ; and that too after you had 
 been unnecessarily civil to him in your speech. 
 It would serve him quite right, Germain, and be 
 your best chance of success, if you were to join 
 at once with that Knight of the Plough and 
 Pigtail, Stedman." 
 
 " To that I have a great objection/' answered 
 Germain ; " I know Oakley well enough to have 
 a due regard for his intrinsic qualities, and how- 
 ever rough his manner or rugged his temper, 
 I am sure at bottom he has a good heart." 
 
 " I never knew a disagreeable man who had 
 not, or was not said to have. I should not call 
 a man well dressed because he had an em- 
 broidered birth-day suit locked up in his ward- 
 robe — your good heart is not every-day wear ;
 
 YES AND NO. 293 
 
 it may not come into use above once or twice in 
 a man's life." 
 
 " Well, I know you were never fond of Oak- 
 ley ; but as to coalescing with Stedman, though 
 I think Oakley's dishke of contradiction and con- 
 fidence in his own j udgment make him a little wild 
 in some of his political opinions, yet I am much 
 nearer agreeing with him than with Stedman." 
 
 " Oh ! this is a part of the subject upon which 
 you must excuse me ; I look upon the whole 
 affair as little better than a sort of seven years' 
 suicide ; but if you choose to buy that most 
 expensive luxury, the privilege of losing your 
 hunting in the winter and your dinners in the 
 spring, and the pleasure of hearing men speak 
 by the hour whose talk you would not endure 
 by the minute — why I was only endeavouring 
 to gratify your taste, such as it is. So adieu ! 
 Any message to Lady Latimer?" 
 
 Germain returned to his committee-room, cer-
 
 294 YES AND NO. 
 
 tainly not gratified at the events of the morning, 
 but by no means so much dispirited as might 
 have been expected ; he had at all times a happy 
 knack of seeing every thing in the most favour- 
 able point of view, and at any rate he found a 
 sufficiency of occupation for the moment in lis- 
 tening to the various counsels which alternately 
 preponderated in the little conclave, every one 
 in turn seeming to think that they rendered him 
 the most effectual assistance by differing dia- 
 metrically from the advice of the last speaker. 
 
 His party, it must have been observed, was 
 throughout rather of a mixed character. He 
 had the strenuous support of some of the great 
 families of the county ; and as far as personal 
 influence extended, he had made the best possi- 
 ble use of the short period he had been before the 
 public eye, to concihate and attach people to him- 
 self individually, but his best chance of success 
 was to depend upon his being considered as the
 
 YES AND NO. 295 
 
 '' least evil of the two" by one or other of his 
 competitors. 
 
 " This will never do," said Mr. Macdeed, 
 shaking his head despondingly ; " we can't af- 
 ford to go on feeding the poll with plumpers. 
 It is very well for that purse-proud Oakley, with 
 high sounding principles for those who are not 
 to be bought, and plenty of money for those who 
 are ; it is very well for him to stand aloof, but 
 we have neither funds nor faction enough to 
 prosper alone ; and as it is plain we shall never 
 get any assistance from the green party, the 
 alternative seems to me obvious." 
 
 Germain's answer to this was interrupted by 
 the entrance of a figure with blue and red rib- 
 bons mixed, who thrust a brown sunburnt hand 
 into his, with " How d'ye do to-day, sir?" Ger- 
 main immediately recognised Captain Wilcox, 
 and the captain continued : "Is your friend 
 Lord Latimer here, sir?"
 
 296 YES AND NO. 
 
 " Not exactly," replied Germain, rather amused 
 at this eastern idea of freedom of election . 
 
 " Oh!" said the captain, " I thought he might 
 have been here, backing you up ; you see I've 
 got on the livery too — blue and red mixed — 
 united service colours, as I call them. I hope 
 they'll be seen in common to-morrow, and that 
 you'll contrive between you to keep out that 
 long-winded chap." 
 
 " Won't you take a chair. Captain Wilcox?" 
 said Mr. Macdeed, who was delighted at the 
 prospect of such a reinforcement to his view of 
 the subject; but Germain was for the present 
 resolute in postponing any consideration of a co- 
 alition till after the close of the next day's poll. 
 
 The next day's poll closed, and left Oakley 
 still at the head, and Germain rather lower in 
 proportion than he had been. There is no spe- 
 cies of success for the moment so intoxicating 
 as the temporary elevation of a popular candidate
 
 YES AND NO. 
 
 297 
 
 at a contested election. It was under the excite- 
 ment of this influence that Oakley spoke on the 
 second day, and to this is to be attributed much 
 of the intemperance and indiscretion, which gave 
 the more offence from assuming the character of 
 contempt for both of his competitors. He who 
 would have scorned to yield his judgment to the 
 arguments of any man, allowed his conduct to 
 be influenced by the unmeaning outcries of the 
 senseless rabble that surrounded the hustings. 
 
 Not that those vociferous excitements were 
 either so loud or so general as they had been the 
 day before ; to explain which it is necessary to 
 own that one of Mr. Macdeed's accusations, that 
 of buying suffrages, was quite unfounded as tar 
 as regarded Oakley. He was not a man who 
 ever professed a principle which he did not mean 
 to practise. He did not therefore conceive purity 
 of election to mean the purchase of huzzas from 
 thirsty throats in exchange for hogsheads of ale. 
 
 o 5
 
 298 YES AND NO. 
 
 His disbursements were confined to what are call- 
 ed strictly legal expenses. The discovery of this 
 fact had its effect upon the degree of enthusiasm 
 with which he was received on the second day. 
 Yet still he was at the head of the poll, and 
 spoke in the full confidence of continuing there 
 till a final happy result of the contest. 
 
 In the meantime Fitzalbert had returned, and 
 told Lord Latimer of the difficulty there seemed 
 in so completely detaching Oakley from Germain, 
 as to induce him to throw him overboard and 
 unite with the other; which, as Fitzalbert said, 
 would insure their success. 
 
 Lord Latimer was now so regularly worked up 
 by the excitement of the contest, as to think 
 success an affair of the first moment; he had 
 also originally engaged in the affair principally 
 from a dislike of Oakley ; he could not bear, 
 therefore, the prospect of defeat from such a 
 cause as consideration for the person, whose
 
 YES AND NO. 
 
 299 
 
 mortification would be rather an additional en- 
 joyment to him : not that he was really an ill- 
 natured person, or that his feelings one way or 
 other would have been very durable, but at the 
 moment he certainly vvQuld have thought Oak- 
 ley's defeat improved the joke. He therefore 
 wrote to Germain earnestly, though good- 
 humouredly, urging him not to throw away the 
 chances in what he justly considered their joint 
 concern. 
 
 After this letter was dispatched, and till the 
 event was known, the conversation at Latimer 
 of course rarely diverged from the all-engrossing 
 topic of the election. And as, during the delu- 
 sion of such a period, there is hardly an imagin- 
 able vice of which people will not accuse a rival 
 candidate, it was not to be expected that Oakley 
 would be spoken of in very favourable terms. 
 
 There was one there, however, who heard all 
 the disparaging mention of him in silent dissent.
 
 300 YES AND NO. 
 
 With too much gentleness to dispute, and yet 
 too much character to beUeve all she heard, the 
 only impression it made upon her mind was, 
 that Lord Latimer, with all his general facility 
 of temper, was prejudiced when thwarted ; that 
 Fitzalbert, with all his pleasantry, would say any 
 thing for the sake of a joke ; and that even Lady 
 Latimer, in whom it pained her to find any fault, 
 was rather more eager about the event of the 
 election than became one of her sex, unconnected 
 as she was with any of the candidates. 
 
 " Can it be," thought Helen^ " when I hear 
 Mr. Oakley denounced as having adopted level- 
 ling opinions, unbefitting his rank in life, from 
 a constitutional impatience of contradiction, a 
 discontented intolerance of an equal, and a purse- 
 proud desire to be the head of his company — 
 can this be the person whose delight it seemed 
 to be to listen with so much interest to the crude, 
 half-formed impressions of an untutored girl.
 
 YES AND NO. 301 
 
 and to explain (oh, how persuasively!) the errors 
 into which utter ignorance of the world might 
 lead me ? I can never believe that selfishness 
 is the actuating ingredient in such a cha- 
 racter." 
 
 Helen had certainly some pretty distinct recol- 
 lections of ebullitions of impatience even to her 
 upon the subject of the election ; but the blame 
 of them she was not willing to attribute exclu- 
 sively to him, and the only light in which she 
 now recollected them was, as proving the exces- 
 sive eagerness with which he sought a distinction 
 for which she was sure his talents peculiarly 
 fitted him ; and the only regret they now en- 
 hanced was, that the attainment of that object, 
 so much desired, seemed by no means certain. 
 
 Had Helen even been aware of the concur- 
 rence of circumstances which first attracted 
 Oakley's attention towards her, she would not 
 readily have admitted what might have occurred
 
 302 YES AND NO. 
 
 to those who took a more unfavourable view of 
 his character, tliat it was perhaps her very de- 
 pendence upon him, which the selfish abstraction 
 of his nature considered as an additional charm ; 
 but, on the contrary, she would gladly have been 
 convinced of what had indeed latterly been the 
 case, tliat his conduct towards her had been 
 caused by the working of a passion which has 
 immemorially been allowed to soften rugged 
 natures, and to occasion striking incongruities 
 in a man's general character, and his peculiar 
 deportment when under its influence. 
 
 When Germain received Lord Latimer's letter, 
 he had just returned from the hustings after the 
 second day's poll, feeling as much exasperated 
 as it was in his nature to feel at the wanton, 
 unprovoked tone of offence which Oakley had 
 ao-ain assumed ; yet he had been even more dis- 
 o-usted with a few further specimens of combined 
 ignorance and intolerance from some of the
 
 YES AND NO. 303 
 
 Stedmanites, and in spite of the little personal 
 soreness of the moment, he never could stop to 
 form any comparison between the pleasure he 
 should feel at commencing his public career 
 hand in hand with the friend of his youth, or 
 going into parliament with such a live log tied 
 to him for a colleague as Squire Stedman. 
 
 This was not however exactly the alternative 
 he had to decide upon. Lord Latimer's letter 
 put it to him again in a stronger light, that the 
 most probable contingency was that he should 
 himself lose his election. Guy Faux himself, of 
 gunpowder memory, is not more completely a 
 puppet in the hands of the November urchins 
 who set him up, than a candidate at a contested 
 election often is in those of the party which upholds 
 him. This Germain found in the eagerness with 
 which he was now urged to accede to the pro- 
 posed coalition. There were not precedents 
 wanting for it, even among those most differing
 
 304 YES AND NO. 
 
 from Mr. Stedman in principles. In contests 
 like the present, individual security, not political 
 consistency, is made the first object. Mr. Mac- 
 deed, who had been very active all the morning 
 in attempting to arrange this junction, found 
 Mr. Stedman's party even more anxious for it, 
 for they had at length discovered that that fine 
 old scarlet bugbear, the Pope, had been rather 
 vi^orn out in the course of the last seven years, 
 and as they had nothing to replace him, they were 
 desirous to take any measures to patch up their 
 threadbare pretensions. The event may be an- 
 ticipated — an exchange of second votes, as far 
 as they had it in their power to arrange it, was 
 determined upon, and the effect was soon ap- 
 parent. 
 
 For though it gave Oakley an additional 
 opening for some fine bursts of indignant decla- 
 mation, yet at the same time it so far increased 
 the irritability of his temper, as to make him
 
 YES AND NO. 305 
 
 unintentionally offend some of his most zealous 
 partizans. 
 
 Combined too with the limitations which upon 
 principle he had put to the expenses, it caused 
 a visible diminution in his relative strength. 
 After, therefore, an animated but fruitless con- 
 test, in which it would be difficult to say whether 
 he had most succeeded in extorting admiration, 
 or provoking hostility, the numbers were declared 
 at the final close of the poll, 
 
 Germain 2301 
 
 Stedman 2254 
 
 Oakley 1906
 
 306 YES AND NO. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 The fearful time 
 
 Cuts off the ceremonious vows of love, 
 And ample interchange of sweet discourse, 
 Which so longsunder'd friends should dwell upon. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 WniLSTthe contest still continued, Oakley had 
 not felt any despondency at his daily diminish- 
 ing hopes of success. The reputation of a mar- 
 tyr was one pecuharly suited to his character. 
 It was almost the only distinction which, whilst 
 it elevated him in his own opinion, at the same 
 timefedthat distrust of others in which itpleased 
 him to indulge. Whilst he persuaded himself, in
 
 YES AND NO. 307 
 
 attempting to persuade others, that he was the 
 victim of an unprincipled conspiracy, it is to be 
 doubled whether at the moment he would have 
 exchanged the liberty of expressing his opinion 
 of his opponents in unmeasured terms, for that 
 situation on the poll which would have burdened 
 his tongue with a weight of gratitude, and de- 
 prived him of the pleasure of considering himself 
 as a virtuous victim to the ignorance and cor- 
 ruption of the age. 
 
 But, as the excitement subsided, other feelings 
 blended themselves with the retrospect. He left 
 the town in Lady Boreton's carriage : her lady 
 ship had been active in her assistance to the very 
 last, and would now, if she had received any 
 encouragement, have been equally ready with 
 her consolations, but Oakley's taciturnity seemed 
 invincible ; therefore Lady Boreton, whose busy 
 mind was never unoccupied, entered at once into 
 eager conversation with her literary hanger-on.
 
 308 YES AND NO. 
 
 who sat opposite, and was soon as far off as 
 the gardens of the Hesperides, discussing their 
 recently-discovered locality. Sir John, who 
 was opposite Oakley, lest he should be expected 
 to say any thing, kept his eyes as intently fixed 
 upon the passing hedges, as if he had been 
 counting the blackberries on them. 
 
 Oakley therefore was allowed, undisturbed, 
 the indulgence of his reflections at much greater 
 length than they need be recorded. It is suffi- 
 cient to say, that every ground of consolation 
 gradually faded away upon further examination. 
 He now felt disposed to doubt the justice, or 
 even the excellence of some of those philippics 
 of which he had not been a little proud, when 
 they found a ready approval in the acclamations 
 of his party. Their effect however still remained 
 to be felt; they had alienated the only person 
 whose friendship he had ever valued, and sepa- 
 rated him farther from her who had awakened in
 
 YES AND NO. 309 
 
 his heart an interest, strong in proportion to 
 the newness of the feehng to him. 
 
 He was roused by hearing Lady Boreton say, 
 after a check to their progress, caused by meet- 
 ino- another carriage at a turnpike, " There is 
 Lady Latimer, of course all smiles ; and can 
 that possibly be Miss Mordaunt moping in the 
 corner? How that girl is altered since she 
 first came to my house ! I can't think what 
 has come over her ; I never saw any thing so 
 melancholy as she looked last time she came 
 into town with Lady Latimer." 
 
 The carriages crossed ; no one replied to 
 Lady Boreton's remark ; she therefore returned 
 to her golden-fruited gardens. Sir John to his 
 blackberry-bushes, and Oakley resumed his re- 
 verie, which was now somewhat less political 
 than it had originally been. They thus arrived 
 at the first stage where they were to separate ; 
 Sir John and Lady Boreton continuing their
 
 310 YES AND NO. 
 
 route homewards, and Oakley mounting his 
 horse and crossing to Goldsborough. The groom 
 who had come to meet him with the horse, 
 brought with him from thence a packet which 
 otherwise affected his destination. 
 
 It was with some surprise that he read a 
 letter from Mrs. Mordaunt to him, in which 
 she stated that she was already under such 
 heavy obligations to him, that she had the less 
 hesitation in applying to him now to extricate 
 her from difficulties of a delicate and distressing 
 nature. Her health had latterly, she said, been 
 breaking rapidly; she had been anxious not 
 to alarm Helen on the subject unnecessarily, 
 till warned by her physician that she had no 
 time to lose. As her daughter's intimacy with 
 Lady Latimer had originated in an accidental 
 occurrence, with which she had herself no con- 
 cern, she was unwilling now to open a commu- 
 nication with that lady, which might lead to
 
 Yi:S AND NO. 311 
 
 inquiries, that, for many reasons, she would 
 rather avoid ; and yet she could not bear that 
 her daughter should return to her unprepared 
 to find her much changed since last they parted. 
 She therefore knew not to whom to confide the 
 task of imparting to Helen the painful necessity 
 for her return, unless it was to him from whom 
 she had had no secret, and to whom she owed 
 the double debt of having, by his liberality, 
 given comfort to her latter days, and by his 
 kindness, smoothed herdauo-hter's first entrance 
 into the world. 
 
 Oakley's faculties had been so bewildered 
 and exhausted by the excitement under which 
 he had been lately labouring, that he read this 
 letter over several times before he could form 
 any consistent plan for complying with the re- 
 quest it contained. It appeared as if Mrs. 
 Mordaunt had been ignorant of many late cir- 
 cumstances, which made him a peculiarly in-
 
 312 YES AND NO. 
 
 convenient medium for communicating any 
 thing to Helen whilst under Lord Latimer's 
 roof. And such indeed was the case. Helen 
 could have related nothing- to her mother on 
 the subject of the election, except those pre- 
 judiced versions of the contest which were per- 
 petually repeated in her hearing at Latimer, 
 and which she was extremely unwilling to be- 
 lieve ; she had therefore adopted the alternative 
 of utter silence on that subject, and so com- 
 pletely secluded was Mrs. Mord aunt's mode of 
 life, that she was very unlikely to know any 
 thing about it from any other source. 
 
 She therefore had written in the full con- 
 fidence that Mr. Oakley's intercourse with her 
 daughter was still upon the same easy footing 
 that it had formerly been. Her own early ex- 
 perience of the workings of the heart, and the 
 deductions which, in the calm of her latter 
 days, she had drawn from that experience, lead-
 
 YES AND NO. 313 
 
 ing her to believe that Helen's comparative 
 omission of Oakley's name in her most recent 
 letters, arose from other causes than either se- 
 paration or indifference. Not that it ought, 
 therefore, to be supposed that Mrs. Mordaunt 
 had formed any interested scheme for her 
 daughter's advantageous settlement in life, by 
 a union with Oakley, but occasionally, in her 
 solitude, indistinct hopes of that nature would 
 come across her. She had so studied Helen's 
 character, she had so sifted its freedom from 
 the seeds of those errors which had been her 
 own ruin, that when year after year she found 
 it only more " lovely in blossom, rich in fruit," 
 she justly considered that one so perfect as a 
 daughter, would be invaluable as a wife. 
 
 True, with bitter humiliation she felt that 
 her own character might be a bar to any con- 
 nexion of that kmd; and to think of her, sepa- 
 rated and estranged, was more than she could 
 
 VOL I. p
 
 314 YES AND NO. 
 
 bear: but it had lono- been in her daiio-hter 
 and for her daughter alone she had hved, and 
 for her sake she hoped soon to die. 
 
 It was in the prospects which the visit to 
 Lady Latimer seemed to have opened to Helen, 
 that Mrs. Mordaunt found her consolation for 
 the present separation. Lady Latimer had first 
 met Miss Mordaunt at the house of an old go- 
 verness of hers, who had retired to the same se- 
 cluded neighbourhood as her mother. She 
 was a very respectable elderly gentlewoman, 
 with whom Lady Latimer kept up an occa- 
 sional intercourse, in gratitude for some early 
 moral instruction which Lady Flamborough 
 had, as in duty bound, in the first instance, 
 hired her to implant, and afterwards had her- 
 self been at some pains to eradicate. This 
 good old lady had taken a great fancy to Miss 
 Mordaunt, and had introduced her to the 
 notice of Lady Latimer, as the orphan-child
 
 YES AND NO. 315 
 
 of an officer in the army, whose widow lived in 
 that neighbourhood. 
 
 But to return to Oakley and the letter. It is 
 to be feared that one of the first reflections that 
 it raised in his mind was, that the death of a 
 person in Mrs. Mordaunt's unfortunate situ- 
 ation would be no disadvantage to Helen ; but 
 he checked the idea, when he recollected the 
 shock her affectionate nature would sustain in 
 the final separation from a mother, from whom 
 she had received nothing but kindness, and of 
 whom she knew nothing but good. Again he 
 cursed this unlucky election, which had laid 
 an embargo upon personal communication at 
 present. How could he, especially after the 
 language he had used about Lord Latimer and 
 his friends, attempt to cross his threshold un- 
 invited and unexpected ? 
 
 He sat down determined to write the painful 
 intelligence he had to convey to Miss Mor- 
 
 p2
 
 316 YES AND NO. 
 
 daunt. But he could not satisfy himself with 
 either the style or substance of what he had 
 committed to paper. Besides, what right had 
 he to address Miss Mordaunt at all ? Many 
 things, which an additional word or look might 
 explain or soften, at the moment looked abrupt 
 when staring nakedly and unalterably upon 
 paper. 
 
 At one time he thought of returning home 
 to Goldsborouo;h and committing to some dele- 
 gated person the task that had been assigned 
 to himself. But who should be that person ? be- 
 came the next question. Mr, Gardner from his 
 character, would have been peculiarly fitted to 
 undertake it, but he could not think of asking 
 such a favour of him, after parting from him in 
 a temper of suspicion, which did not render 
 it easy to make the next meeting one of unre- 
 strained confidence. 
 
 He read the letter again, and it appeared
 
 YES AND NO. 317 
 
 that something must be decided on speedily. 
 Whilst he was still deliberating, the shades of 
 night thickened around him, and after having 
 made a last ineffectual attempt to finish what 
 he had written by the uncertain fire-light in 
 the little room to which he had retired, he took 
 the sudden resolution of returning himself 
 alone, and under cover of the darkness, (he 
 trusted unobserved,) to the county town where 
 Helen had accompanied Lady Latimer. 
 
 " There at least," thought he, " whilst they 
 are occupied with their petty triumph, I can 
 have an opportunity of a few minutes' private 
 conversation with Miss Mordaunt without tres- 
 passing upon Lord Latimer's hospitality." 
 
 This resolution was no sooner taken than 
 executed, and he was without further delay on 
 horseback, and again, but more rapidly gliding 
 past those hedges of which Sir John had some 
 hours before so accurately examined the de-
 
 318 YES AND NO. 
 
 tails, but which now appeared, by the uncer- 
 tain twilight of an autumnal evening, to stalk 
 by in gloomy, gigantic masses, as he galloped 
 between them. He heeded not their threaten- 
 ing shadows, nor the more substantial discom- 
 forts of the coming storm, entirely occupied 
 with arranging, as far as the confusion of his 
 ideas would admit, the manner in which he 
 might best break the unwelcome tidings with 
 which he was charged, to one whom he was 
 most unwilling to pain. 
 
 The first thing that at all dissipated the deep 
 abstraction in which these thoughts involved 
 him, was soon after entering the town, a sud- 
 den and violent start of his horse at a blazing 
 pile which flared across the streets. This ap- 
 peared to rise out of a cask, which the drunken 
 assemblage who surrounded it, having previ- 
 ously emptied, had now filled with combus-
 
 YES AND NO. 319 
 
 tibles, and on the top of it was exposed a 
 stufied figure, which, from its black wig and 
 oratorical attitude, was evidently meant for 
 Oakley himself. 
 
 Enraged at the sight, he spurred his horse 
 furiously through the mob, who fled on all sides, 
 scared at the sight, as the lurid glare fell for a 
 moment upon the haggard apparition of him 
 whose image they had just been revihng, but 
 whose actual presence they had seen removed 
 from the town some hours before. In another 
 second he was lost in the thick cloud of smoke 
 which rolled onward the way he went, and it 
 ever after remained an unexplained mystery, 
 what it was the boys saw that night near Tom 
 Smith's rag-yard. Even the old gossip (who, 
 as the first authority in ghost-stories was con- 
 sulted on the subject) only shook his head, and 
 said, " It was na a canny task to burn a sinfu'
 
 320 YES AND NO. 
 
 cratur afore his day — there was na tilhng wha 
 might com in sim shape or other to thankee for 
 saving of his fuel." 
 
 Meantime Oakley rode on, not much im- 
 proved in temper by the late incident, and hav- 
 ing put up his horse, sought out Lady Latimer's 
 lodging.
 
 YES AND NO. 321 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Wliat fire is in mine ears V Can this be true ? 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 " And you never were at a ball before, my 
 dear Helen ?" said Lady Latimer, as they drove 
 into town that day. " How you will enjoy it, 
 and what a sensation you will create ! Why, 
 it will make that old, rural, dirty Mr. Sted- 
 man, dance like Pan himself to have you for 
 a partner." 
 
 " I hope you won't be angry at what I am 
 
 V 5
 
 322 YES AND NO. 
 
 going to say. But I wish you would excuse 
 my going to this ball to-night. I am delighted 
 to come here, or go any where that procures me 
 the pleasure of being with you, but I can be no 
 resource to you in a ball-room ; and though 
 your kindness endeavours to make me forget 
 my own insignificance, yet at a meeting of this 
 sort, utterly unknown as I am, I cannot help 
 thinking I must be de trop — at festivities too, 
 to which I cannot be considered a party." 
 
 " If a party, not a very friendly one, I am 
 afraid," said Lady Latimer, smiling. " Have 
 a care, or I will tell Germain that I fear w^e 
 have a traitor in the camp, whose wishes were 
 with the fallen. Nay, now you belie my words, 
 for your cheeks are of Germain's colour, sure 
 enough. But no more excuses for to-night at 
 least ; I will fulfil Macbeth's threat, and make 
 ' the green one red.' " 
 
 " Nay, you wrong me if you think I can do
 
 YES AND NO. 
 
 323 
 
 otherwise than rejoice in your success ; and I 
 hope that you won't attribute my conduct to 
 any such ingratitude, when I own that so tho- 
 rouohiy was I convinced that I should be in 
 your way to-night, that I have brought no ball- 
 dress with me." 
 
 " Nor have I," said Lady Latimer, " so 
 you will be as well off as I am — but wait a lit- 
 tle," added she, observing that Helen looked 
 surprised at this declaration. 
 
 " Any cases come for me from London ?" 
 asked Lady Latimer, upon alighting at her 
 lodging. 
 
 " Yes, two," my lady, readily rephed the 
 soubrette. 
 
 * 
 
 " Now for them, then. There, my dear 
 Helen, did you ever see any thing so beau- 
 tiful ? the colour quite appropriate, all trimmed 
 with the veritable feu d'enfer ; not those 
 awkward imitations of which one has been
 
 324 YES AND NO. 
 
 asliamed during the election — both precisely 
 alike you see — this was my little surprise for 
 you ; you had no suspicion when I observed 
 how well my dresses fitted you, that I meant to 
 send for this as a little cadeau for you, that we 
 might both appear exactly the same to-night." 
 
 There was so much genuine good-nature 
 mixed up with the frivolous importance which 
 Lady Latimer attached to this little affair, that 
 Helen could not bear to disappoint her by refus- 
 ing to use, on this appropriate occasion, the 
 beautiful dress which she had taken such pains 
 to procure for her. 
 
 Lady Latimer having quite made up her 
 mind that there was but one person who could 
 dress both their heads in a manner at all 
 worthy of the occasion, Miss Mordaunt had re- 
 tired first, and had returned to the drawing- 
 room, her toilette finished, the beautiful dress 
 even exceeding Lady Latimer's expecta-
 
 YES AND NO. 325 
 
 tions, and her fine hair interspersed with corre- 
 sponding bows of feu d'enfer. She was ex- 
 pecting to have long to await alone the result 
 of her friend's somewhat soigne labour, when 
 a bustle was heard in the passage below. 
 
 Lady Latimer's servants never did more than 
 was absolutely necessary at home, and upon 
 an occasion like the present, they would have 
 thought it quite out of character to be in the 
 way ; therefore it was the soubrette of the 
 house who announced that " a gemman wished 
 to speak to Miss ;"and without waiting a reply, 
 ushered Oakley into the room. 
 
 It would be hardly possible to imagine a 
 more attractive object than Helen Mordaunt 
 then appeared — a form and features in which 
 were happily blended the brilliant with the de- 
 licate ; a countenance marked at once with 
 strength of mind and innocence of heart ; and 
 all those innate charms enhanced by the efforts
 
 326 YES AND NO. 
 
 of art, wliicli in this instance had luckily united 
 the correct in fashion with the becoming in 
 taste. 
 
 But if, instead, a loathsome and disgusting 
 object had unexpectedly crossed his path, Oak- 
 ley's countenance, upon beholding it, could not 
 have undergone a more sudden change in expires- 
 sion than when he found her, whom he had come 
 to console and support under affliction, more ra- 
 diant than ever, decked out, as he thought, in- 
 sultingly, in his rival's colours. Helen's surprise 
 at first keeping her silent, he began with sup- 
 pressed emotion : " The person I see, is so un- 
 like the MissMordaunt I expected to find, that 
 I know not how I can sufficiently apologize for 
 my intrusion." 
 
 " I will not deny that I am indeed much 
 astonished to see you here, and thus — " said 
 she, looking at his splashed and disordered 
 appearance ; " but from all I have known
 
 YES AND NO. 327 
 
 of Mr. Oakley, I have no doubt that he 
 has some good reason to give for what in- 
 deed " 
 
 " All you have known of Mr. Oakley — per- 
 haps you know as little in truth of what Mr. 
 Oakley really is, as he now finds to his cost he 
 knew of Miss Mordaunt. We may have been 
 equally deceived." 
 
 " This is very strange," said Helen, alarm- 
 ed. " I entreat you to recollect yourself, Mr. 
 Oakley. Lady Latimer will be down presently., 
 and if you have any thing to say, I beg it may 
 be in her presence." 
 
 " Yes, Lady Latimer — she it is that has 
 wrought this change in you — a cold, unfeeling 
 coquette, who, simply to gratify her vanity 
 would compromise her own character. Why 
 should she respect that of her friend ? — she it is 
 that, at a time when you ought to be far other- 
 wise attired, has for her own purposes decked
 
 328 YES AND NO. 
 
 you out ill these trappings of her fickle admirer, 
 the frivolous Germain." 
 
 " Whatever Mr. Germain's character may 
 be, it is not for me to defend it ; but I must 
 say, that I feel confident his conduct would 
 never have been such as in the last few mi- 
 nutes I have blushed to witness. Oh, for 
 shame, Mr. Oakley!" added she, gathering 
 courage as she proceeded, " if no generous re- 
 gard for my unprotected situation prevents your 
 forcing upon my unwilling ear erioneous con- 
 structions upon my conduct, why should you 
 iinasine that I can hear without resentment 
 an unprovoked libel upon the character of my 
 best friend and benefactress, and that too from 
 one who has no claim upon me beyond that of 
 a common acquaintance, and whom gratitude 
 to my protectress, will be sufficient to make me 
 henceforth treat as a stranger."
 
 YES AND NO. 329 
 
 Helen's feelings had been thoroughly roused 
 by an overpowering sense of injustice; and whilst 
 her eye flashed indignantly upon Oakley with 
 an expression so different from its habitual mild- 
 ness, the recollection of his uncle's portrait came 
 involuntarily across him. He felt for a moment 
 subdued by the tone she took ; but there was 
 much of what she said peculiarly galling to his 
 impetuous disposition in its present fevered 
 state. The unfavourable comparison drawn be- 
 tween himself and Germain, excited a feeling, 
 which combined with the previous ranklings 
 of envy, the additional pang of jealousy. The 
 rejection of him as a stranger, with which she 
 concluded, conspired to overthrow the little 
 command he still had upon himself, and he 
 replied : — 
 
 " What other claims upon your favour I may 
 have foolishly imagined I had established, it is
 
 330 YES AND NO. 
 
 useless now to inquire, but you may live to feel 
 that the gratitude you profess towards Lady 
 Latimer is as nothing compared to that which 
 you ought to have acknowledged towards me." 
 
 "Gratitude to you I — for what? Can you 
 possibly mean to allude to attentions, which it 
 would be as unworthy in you to urge, as de- 
 grading to me to admit, as establishing such 
 a claim ? — Gratitude to you ! I owe you none " 
 
 " What !" said Oakley wildly, "—none that 
 I readily cancelled my uncle's tacit rejection of 
 his child — none that I gave to the offspring of 
 shame an honourable position in the w^orld by 
 continuing to your surviving parent the pension 
 of her guilt?" 
 
 " Good God, he's mad !" exclaimed Helen, a 
 sudden conviction of that appalling nature com- 
 ing upon her, from the vehemence of his manner, 
 and the apparent incoherence of what he uttered. 
 She darted by him to the door, and succeeded
 
 YES AND NO. 331 
 
 in making her escape up stairs. Her first idea 
 was to seek protection in Lady Latimer's apart- 
 ment, but she hesitated even at the door, from 
 an unvvilhngness herself to explain and detail, 
 particularly at the present moment, all that had 
 just passed; she therefore retired to her own 
 room, where she remained some minutes in a 
 deplorable state of agitation. She then heard 
 Oakley, who had made no attempt to follow her, 
 rapidly descending the stairs, and immediately 
 after, the housemaid brought her a letter in her 
 mother's hand directed to Oakley, enclosed in 
 an envelope, in which was scrawled in pencil 
 these few lines : — 
 
 " I can in no way make reparation for what 
 I have done, nor expect you to forgive me, when 
 I can never forgive myself. The enclosed will 
 explain that I came with other intentions than 
 wantonly to insult you, though it will not, and 
 cannot, excuse the brutal perversion of my errand.
 
 332 YES AND NO. 
 
 May heaven support you under those afflictions, 
 which it is my curse to have aggravated !" 
 
 E. O. 
 
 The comparative sanity of this note, and the 
 tone of obligation with which she found her 
 mother addressing him, were far from consola- 
 tory to Helen ; for they opened to her the dread- 
 ful suspicion that there was some foundation for 
 the mysterious connexion with Oakley at which 
 he had hinted. This harrowing thought did 
 not however at the moment take much hold upon 
 her mind, as every other idea was superseded 
 for the time by the present calamity which her 
 mother's letter imparted, that she was ill, very 
 ill, and desired her immediate return. 
 
 It was with the determination just formed, 
 that her departure should not be delayed an- 
 other moment, that she was found by Lady 
 Latimer, whose toilet was at length finished, 
 and who entered her room engrossed with the
 
 YES AND NO. 333 
 
 expectation of that admiration she knew she so 
 well deserved. Helen immediately communi- 
 cated to her the intelligence she had received 
 of her mother's illness, though she did not add 
 the means by which she had learnt it. 
 
 Lady Latimer was much disappointed, and at 
 first attempted to remove the impression of its 
 serious nature, by saying — 
 
 " Oh ! I dare say it is of no consequence ; 
 your fears have exaggerated things; to-morrow 
 we shall be returning, and then, certainly, if you 
 like, you can go home." 
 
 But upon raising her candle to Helen's face, 
 the desolating effects of agitation she there ob- 
 served, which had been in no small degree 
 caused by the scene she had undero-one, but 
 which Lady Latimer attributed entirely to the 
 news she had received, showed that she was 
 not to be trifled with. She therefore at once 
 offered one of her own carriages and servants to
 
 334 YES AND NO. 
 
 be immediately ordered to convey Miss Mor- 
 daunt upon her way homewards, if she wished 
 to set off without delay. This having been 
 thank fully accepted, Lady Latimer leftthe room, 
 saying that she would herself stay at home till 
 every thing was ready, in order that she might 
 see that all possible expedition was used. 
 
 Helen immediately commenced, with no small 
 degree of impatience, throwing off the unluckv 
 ball-dress, which had certainly excited any thing 
 but admiration in the only person by whom it 
 had been seen ; and soon were scattered neglect- 
 fully about the room, flowers, ribbons, and simi- 
 lar paraphernalia, which would have made the 
 fortune of any milliner, and the happiness of 
 any young lady in the county. Lender Lady 
 Latimer's own immediate direction, the prepara- 
 tions for the journey were completed in an in- 
 credibly short time, and after a most affectionate
 
 YES AND NO. 335 
 
 farewell, the two friends separated, Helen to 
 commence her sad and solitary return home- 
 wards. Lady Latimer to gladden the expectant 
 eyes of the brilHant ball-room. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
 
 LONDON : 
 inOTSOK AND PALMLK, SAVOY-STRtET, STRAND. 
 
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