By the time he was fifty, Docter Austin Sloper was quite a famous person in New York. His conversation was complete without him.
He was also lucky. In 1820,at the age of twenty-seven,he had married,for love,a very charming girl,who had a fortune of ten thousand dollars a year. For about five years Doctor Sloper was a very happy husband;he continued to work as a docter and each year become more experienced and more successful.
Some of the experience,however,was very unwelcome.His first child,a little boy of great promise,died at three years of age. Neither the mother's love nor the father's medicine could save him. Two years later Mrs Sloper had a second child,a little girl. This disappointed the Doctor,who had wished for another son to take the place of the first,but there was worse news to come. A week after the child was born,the young mother fell ill,and before another week had passed,she was dead.