"It is very large."
"About two thousand acres. Robert, I fancy, cares for the trees more than anything else."
"And he lives here alone?"
"With Uncle John Kimberly. Uncle John is all alone in the world, and a paralytic."
"How unfortunate!"
"Yes. It is unfortunate in some ways; in others not so much so. Don't be shocked. Ours is so big a family we have many kinds. Uncle John! mercy! he led his poor Lydia a life. And she was a saint if ever a wife was one. I hope she has gone to her reward. She never saw through all the weary years, never knew, outwardly, anything of his wickedness."
Dolly looked ahead. "There is the house. See, up through the trees? We shall get a fine view in a minute. I don't know why it has to be, but each generation of our family has had a brainy Kimberly and a wicked Kimberly. The legend is, that when they meet in one, the Kimberlys will end."
CHAPTER V
To afford Alice the effect of the main approach to The Towers itself, Dolly ordered a roundabout drive which gave her guest an idea of the beauties of the villa grounds.
They passed glades of unusual size, bordered by natural forests. They drove among pleasing successions of hills, followed up valleys with occasional brooks, and emerged at length on wide, open stretches of a plateau commanding the lake.