Loropetalum - there are tons of different varieties with purple leaves. Flower color will narrow it down. They are members of the Hamamelidaceae (witch hazel family) which you can see in the flower shape. Nice shrub.

Thanks to both of you. I can't post a picture, because my camera is not a digital, and I don't have a scanner. But I have googled the Meyer Lilac - at first I thought it was our shrub - but I have decided it can't be. The growth habit seemed identical, but when I went out and took a really close look at the leaves on ours, they don't look anything like a lilac leaf (the Meyer Lilac leaf seems to look just like a regular lilac leaf, only smaller; ditto for the "Small-Leaf Lilac", Syringa microphylla, which also turned up in all that searching). I guess I'll keep after it, but I'm not sure it matters - the so-called gardeners who trimmed the yard the last few years had power-mowed it into their favorite ball shape, and it was only when we asked them not to do that, and let it grow out, that we saw this lovely shape and flowers. So I guess if it can come back from what they did to it, it can weather our doing-the-best-we-can pruning....

It's a barberry (Berberis), probably European Barberry (Berberis vulgaris). Tiny bristled teeth on the leaves and three spines at the leaf axis is a characteristic of Berberis vulgaris. Attractive but still the bane of wheat farmers everywhere.

Thanks, that does look like it. Although I don't recall it flowering or having any berries... but maybe I'm just blanking. It is possible for a younger tree not to flower?