When he retired from business, he possessed a house and estate in the country, and a handsome fortune safely invested in the Funds.
His children were three in number:--his son Robert, and his daughters Maria and Susan.
The death of his wife, to whom he was devotedly attached, was the first serious calamity of his life.

He retired to his estate a soured and broken man.

Loving husbands are not always, as a necessary consequence, tender fathers.

Old Robert's daughters afforded him no consolation on their mother's death.

Their anxiety about their mourning dresses so disgusted him that he kept out of their way.