But Hopkins, the head gardener of Allington, who had men under him, was as widely awake to the lawn and the conservatory of the humbler establishment as he was to the grapery, peach-walls, and terraces of the grander one.

In his eyes it was all one place.

The Small House belonged to his master, as indeed did the very furniture within it; and it was lent, not let, to Mrs Dale.

Hopkins, perhaps, did not love Mrs Dale, seeing that he owed her no duty as one born a Dale.

The two young ladies he did love, and also snubbed in a very peremptory way sometimes.