This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler. [Picture: Frontispiece] HOPES AND FEARS OR SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF A SPINSTER BY CHARLOTTE M. YONGE [Picture: Title picture] _ILLUSTRATED BY HERBERT GANDY_ London MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1899 _All rights reserved_ LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. "She felt, rather than saw him watching her all _Frontispiece_ the way from the garden-gate to the wood." "I find I can't spare you, Honora; you had better _Page_ 11 stay at the Holt for good." "He drew the paper before him. Lucilla started _Page_ 296 to her feet." PART I CHAPTER I Who ought to go then and who ought to stay! Where do you draw an obvious border line? _Cecil and Mary_ Among the numerous steeples counted from the waters of the Thames, in the heart of the City, and grudged by modern economy as cumberers of the soil of Mammon, may be remarked an abortive little dingy cupola, surmounting two large round eyes which have evidently stared over the adjacent roofs ever since the Fire that began at Pie-corner and ended in Pudding-lane. Strange that the like should have been esteemed the highest walk of architecture, and yet Honora Charlecote well remembered the days when St. Wulstan's was her boast, so large, so clean, so light, so Grecian, so far surpassing damp old Hiltonbury Church. That was at an age when her enthusiasm found indiscriminate food in whatever had a hold upon her affections, the nearer her heart being of course the more admirable in itself, and it would be difficult to say which she loved the most ardently, her city home in Woolstone-lane, or Hiltonbury Holt, the old family seat, where her father was a welcome guest whenever his constitution required relaxation from the severe toils of a London rector.