Read "Sink or Swim? , Volume I" by Matilda Charlotte Houstoun online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Arthur Vavasour had, as the reader has already learned, found little / difficulty in persuading the kind-hearted, unsuspicious man whose / colossal fortune had been made in the manufacturing districts, and who / entertained exalted ideas (very convenient ones on this occasion) of the / honour of a high-born English gentleman, that he, Arthur Vavasour, was / entirely free from spot or blemish, or any such thing as regarded his / future son-in-law's intimate acquaintance with John Beacham and his two / yearlings.
Old Dub, as he was familiarly called, inhabited, during his annual / sojourn in the country, a magnificent "mansion" on the western borders / of Sandyshire. It was an abode that had once belonged to a Duke, and / princely hospitality had been, during the residence of the aforesaid / nobleman, for a lengthened period dispensed within the noble walls of / Fairleigh Manor. His Grace, however, coming -- according to / nineteenth-century slang -- "to grief," the place was degraded to the / hammer, being purchased by the solvent Mr. Duberly for a sum that would / have liquidated any debts save those of a Duke or a crowned head, but / which was barely sufficient to satisfy the more clamorous creditors of / the quondam owner of Fairleigh.