The place belongs entirely to the past; the shadows of bygone centuries seem to spread around, and everything bears the impress of hoar antiquity and undisturbed respectability; while even the few homesteads you see retain the picturesque features their builders imparted to them long ages ago. The church tower, grey and weather worn, and overgrown in places with ivy, looks with placid serenity over the broad pastures and the green country that stretches southwards and away to the west until it seems interminable, and the eye becomes wearied in trying to follow it to its furthest limits. A sombre-looking yew that has braved the winter's blasts through long centuries of time flanks the gateway; the tall trees that partly surround the churchyard throw their shadows across the grass-grown hillocks, the grasshopper skips about and the white moth flits to and fro, and above the blackbirds and the thrushes pour forth their sweetest music. The ancient fane itself is thoroughly English in its character, a church such as an artist loves to paint, and of which a true-hearted Englishman would carry away many a pleasant remembrance. It exhibits many architectural diversities; the tower is broad and massive, and nave, and chancel, and porch are picturesque in their grouping. On the north side a curious dormer window rises above the roof, and on the south the attention is arrested by the old stone staircase that leads up from the outside to the Stanley pew, a feature that may smack somewhat of exclusiveness, but quaint and pleasant to look upon notwithstanding. As you enter you see at a glance that the fabric has been cared for both within and without, for though the "restorer" has been at work he has dealt tenderly and lovingly with it, repairing only where repairs where needed. The old pews in which somnolent bucolics were wont to recline during sermon-time have been taken away; the flat painted ceiling has disappeared and the whitewash of a dozen generations of churchwardens has been removed from wall and pillar, but everything that was worth preserving has been carefully retained, and-- So absent is the stamp of modern days That, in the quaint carved oak, and oriel stain'd With saintly legend, to Reflection's gaze The Star of Eld seems not yet to have waned. [Illustration: ALDERLEY CHURCH.]