A servant might live for ever at Scroope Manor,--if only sufficiently submissive to Mrs.Bunce the housekeeper.

There was certainly no parsimony at the Manor, but the luxurious living of the household was confined to the servants' department.
To a stranger, and perhaps also to the inmates, the idea of gloom about the place was greatly increased by the absence of any garden or lawn near the house.

Immediately in front of the mansion, and between it and the park, there ran two broad gravel terraces, one above another; and below these the deer would come and browse.

To the left of the house, at nearly a quarter of a mile distant from it, there was a very large garden indeed,--flower-gardens, and kitchen-gardens, and orchards; all ugly, and old-fashioned, but producing excellent crops in their kind.
But they were away, and were not seen.

Oat flowers were occasionally brought into the house,--but the place was never filled with flowers as country houses are filled with them now-a-days.