As the squire himself has never been very enthusiastic about croquet, the croquet implements have been moved permanently down to the Small House, and croquet there has become quite an institution.
And while I am on the subject of the garden I may also mention Mrs Dale's conservatory, as to which Bell was strenuously of opinion that the Great House had nothing to offer equal to it--"For flowers, of course, I mean," she would say, correcting herself; for at the Great House there was a grapery very celebrated.

On this matter the squire would be less tolerant than as regarded the croquet, and would tell his niece that she knew nothing about flowers.

"Perhaps not, Uncle Christopher," she would say.

"All the same, I like our geraniums best;" for there was a spice of obstinacy about Miss Dale,--as, indeed, there was in all the Dales, male and female, young and old.
It may be as well to explain that the care of this lawn and of this conservatory, and, indeed, of the entire garden belonging to the Small House, was in the hands of Hopkins, the head gardener to the Great House; and it was so simply for this reason, that Mrs Dale could not afford to keep a gardener herself.

A working lad, at ten shillings a week, who cleaned the knives and shoes, and dug the ground, was the only male attendant on the three ladies.