after, founded the church of Rivington, and his son, James Pilkington, who had suffered exile for the reformed faith in the time of the Marian persecutions, was nominated by Queen Elizabeth first Protestant bishop of the palatinate see of Durham, and was also founder of the Grammar School at Rivington, an institution that to this day perpetuates his name. Our host having suggested a walk as far, we were nothing loth to act upon his advice and renew acquaintance with a locality familiar to us in earlier years. It was not the most favourable day for a pedestrian ramble, for, though the rays of the February sun had made some feeble attempts to wake the firstlings of the year from their long winter sleep, the indications of spring had proved delusive, and King Frost still held the vegetable world fast bound in his icy fetters. Of a verity it might be said that the lingering winter chilled the lap of spring, for though we had entered upon the month of March the crocus, which, according to the old saw-- Blows before the shrine At vernal dawn of St. Valentine had not yet ventured forth as the harbinger of returning animation, and even the tiny snowdrop, forerunner of the glorious train of summer flowers, hid its drooping head beneath the fleecy robe of nature's weaving from which it takes its name. Winter had returned upon us with old-fashioned severity, and his keen breath had again begun-- To glaze the lakes, to bridle up the floods, And periwig with snow the bald-pate woods.