

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.

Woolstone-lane was a locality that sorely tried the coachmen of Mrs.
Charlecote's West End connections, situate as it was on the very banks of
the Thames, and containing little save offices and warehouses, in the
midst of which stood Honora's home.  It was not the rectory, but had been
inherited from City relations, and it antedated the Fire, so that it was
one of the most perfect remnants of the glories of the merchant princes
of ancient London.  It had a court to itself, shut in by high walls, and
paved with round-headed stones, with gangways of flags in mercy to the
feet; the front was faced with hewn squares after the pattern of Somerset
House, with the like ponderous sashes, and on a smaller scale, the Louis
XIV. pediment, apparently designed for the nesting-place of swallows and
sparrows.  Within was a hall, panelled with fragrant softly-tinted cedar
wood, festooned with exquisite garlands of fruit and flowers, carved by
Gibbons himself, with all his peculiarities of rounded form and delicate
edge.  The staircase and floor were of white stone, tinted on sunny days
with reflections from the windows' three medallions of yellow and white
glass, where Solomon, in golden mantle and crowned turban, commanded the
division of a stout lusty child hanging by one leg; superintended the
erection of a Temple worthy of Haarlem; or graciously welcomed a
recoiling stumpy Vrow of a Queen of Sheba, with golden hair all down her
back.

The river aspect of the house had come to perfection at the Elizabethan
period, and was sculptured in every available nook with the chevron and
three arrows of the Fletchers' Company, and a merchant's mark, like a
figure of four with a curly tail.  Here were the oriel windows of the
best rooms, looking out on a grassplat, small enough in country eyes, but
most extensive for the situation, with straight gravelled walks, and low
lilac and laburnum trees, that came into profuse blossom long before
their country cousins, but which, like the crocuses and snowdrops of the
flower borders, had better be looked at than touched by such as dreaded
sooty fingers.  These shrubs veiled the garden from the great river
thoroughfare, to which it sloped down, still showing traces of the
handsome stone steps and balustrade that once had formed the access of
the gold-chained alderman to his sumptuous barge.

Along those paths paced, book in hand, a tall, well-grown maiden, of good
straight features, and clear, pale skin, with eyes and rich luxuriant