which I read you a short description in Mr. Taylor’s tour.  It is a singular scene; I meant to have given you some account of it, but I feel myself too lazy to execute the task.  ’Tis such a performance as you might have expected from some giant gardener employed by one of Queen Elizabeth’s courtiers, if this same giant gardener had consulted with Spenser, and they two had finished the work together.  By this you will understand that it is at once formal and wild.  We reached Askrigg, twelve miles, before six in the evening, having been obliged to walk the last two miles over hard frozen roads, to the great annoyance of our ankles and feet.  Next morning the earth was thinly covered with snow, enough to make the road soft, and prevent its being slippery.  On leaving Askrigg, we turned aside to see another waterfall.  It was a beautiful morning, with driving snow showers, which disappeared by fits, and unveiled the east, which was all one delicious pale orange colour.  After walking through two small fields we came to a mill, which we passed; and in a moment a sweet little valley opened before us with an area of grassy ground, and a stream dashing over various laminae of black rocks close under a bank covered with firs; the bank and stream on our left, another woody bank on our right, and the flat meadow in front, from which, as at Buttermere the stream had retired, as it were, to hide itself under the shade.  As we walked up this delightful valley we were tempted to look back perpetually on the stream, which reflected the orange lights of the morning among the gloomy rocks, with a brightness varying with the agitation of the current.  The steeple of Askrigg was between us and the east, at the bottom of the valley; it was not a quarter of a mile distant, but oh! how far we were from it!  The two banks seemed to join before us with a facing of rock common to them both.  When we reached this bottom the valley opened out again; two rocky banks on each side, which, hung with ivy and moss, and fringed luxuriantly with brushwood, ran directly parallel to each other, and then approaching with a gentle curve at their point of union, presented a lofty waterfall, the termination of the valley.  It was a keen frosty morning, showers of snow threatening us, but the sun bright and active.  We had a task of twenty-one miles to perform in a short winter’s day.  All this put our minds into such a state of excitation, that we were no unworthy spectators of this delightful scene.  On a nearer approach the waters seemed to fall down a tall arch, or niche, that had shaped itself by insensible moulderings in the wall of an old castle.  We left this spot with reluctance, but highly exhilarated.  When we had walked about a mile and a half, we overtook two men with a string of ponies and some empty carts.  I recommended to Dorothy to avail herself of this opportunity of husbanding her strength:  we rode with them more than two miles.  ’Twas bitter cold, the wind driving the snow behind us in the best style