The purplish brown of the wood rising above the softened reflection of it in the water, and a few touches of brighter brown in the shrubs and ferns near the edge; the boathouse relieved by the dark wood behind it; a line of yellowish brown reeds breaking the reflection of it in the water, and another still brighter yellow-and-brown island coming immediately before it; the soft blue haze spread over the water and softening the reflected outlines of the wood without weakening the effect, contrasted here and there with the vivid and determinate outline of a few leaves or weeds lying on the surface of the water; the scene enlivened now and then by a wild duck darting from the reeds across the lake, making a flutter and foam before her, and leaving a line of clear light behind her on her path, her wild cry distinctly echoed from the wood and deerhouse together--such a simplicity yet variety of tint, such a force of effect, and such a softness of shade and colour! Artists, one and all, hide your diminished heads! The home of the Stanleys is a stone building of no great antiquity and very little architectural merit, and, considering the many advantageous sites the park affords, has been placed with a singular disregard for the charms of situation. Until 1779 the family resided at the old hall near the church, but in the spring of that year it was burnt down, and until the present mansion was built they were obliged to take up their abode at the Park House, a tenement formerly part of the estates held in Alderley by the Abbey of Dieulacres, near Leek. The Hon. Miss Stanley, in her description of "Alderley Edge and its Neighbourhood," says: "The old hall of Alderley was burnt down in the spring of the year 1779. Sir John Stanley was absent at the time; he was on the road home, returning from Chester, where he had gone the day before--he arrived when the whole was nearly consumed--very little of the furniture was saved. It was never known how the fire originated. The house stood in the village of Alderley, close to the mill. It was surrounded by a moat spreading out into a large sheet of water on the east side, and on the west filling a channel cut out of the solid rock. When the house was burnt, it consisted of three sides of (comparatively speaking) a modern built mansion, a large hall of an older date occupying the other side, and offices behind the hall. A handsome stone bridge of two arches crossed the moat from the ground entrance and west side to a stone terrace, which commanded views of the Park, the church, and the plain of Cheshire, and by a flight of steps led to a handsome stone arched gateway close to the road, built by Sir Thomas, the first Baronet." The inscription on the tombstone in Alderley church of Sir Thomas Stanley, who died in 1591, says: "He rebuilt the houses of Alderley and Weever," from which it is evident there was a still earlier mansion upon the site; the house he erected