Emerging from the park, past the old mill--beloved of sketching artists--there are pleasant footways across the meadows that conduct eventually to Lymm. To trace them was, in the bygones, a never-failing enjoyment. Now we go to Lymm direct by train, finding there, as of old, one of the most beautiful of the Cheshire waters; in this case, however, of origin very different from the Vale Royal meres. The water at Lymm, romantic and picturesque as are its surroundings, is simply a vast reservoir, brought into existence by the construction of the viaduct at the foot. The site now occupied by the water was originally a little vale, down which flowed a streamlet called the Dane. Becoming very narrow where the roadway now is, to throw a barricade across was easy. The construction of this gave distinctiveness also to the "dell," the pretty hollow, full of trees, into which, when the water is high, the overplus, creeping under the road by a concealed channel, springs so cheerily. Ordinarily, it must be confessed, there is little more than a thin trickle, but after a day or two's heavy rain, down it comes, with a joyous double leap, in great sheaves and waving veils, the more delectable since the cascade in question is the only one in this part of Cheshire, or anywhere upon the Cheshire side of the town. The pleasantest time to visit this beautiful neighbourhood is the very end of July. The wild cherries are then ripe, and glisten like coral amid the green leaves; and in the water there is a rosy archipelago of persicaria blossom. Beyond the plantation, at the upper extremity, the surface is often so still and placid that every flower and leaf upon the banks finds its image beneath, the inverted foxgloves changing, as the calm gives way to ripples, into softly twining spirals of crimson light. When the shores are laid unusually bare through drought, they furnish abundance of the beautiful shells of the fresh-water mussel, _Anodonta cygnea_, often four inches in length, externally olive-green, and possessed inside of the pearly iridescence so much admired in sea-shells. Many, however, are broken, the swans being fond of the contents. To see the water to its full extent, visitors should continue along the hill-side, opposite the church, and as far as the grove of trees. With permission of the proprietor, it is a great gain, on arrival there, to cross by the rustic bridge, and, turning to the left, ascend the little valley called "Ridding's Brook." The botany of this part is truly rich,--in March the slopes are yellow with the wild daffodil, and in late summer the bank is gay with purple lythrum. The special interest of the valley lies, after all, in its curious dropping and petrifying spring. At the further extremity, upon the right, the steep clay bank, instead of receding, is hollowed underneath for the length of a hundred yards or so, the upper edge projecting to a considerable distance beyond the base, so as to overhang the stream,