Sink or Swim? , Volume III by Matilda Charlotte Houstoun

The great day of the sporting year, the "maddest," if not exactly the / "merriest" day, was close at hand; and the world, both high and low, / rich and poor, one _against_ another, were on the _qui-vive_ of / excitement and the very tip-toe of expectation. Among these variously / interested beings, one of those who had in reality most at stake, was / Arthur Vavasour. Fortune, honour, credit, all were involved, and that to / no limited extent, in the winning of the Derby race by that big-boned, / coarse-made, but wonderfully _staying_ horse, Rough Diamond. Time was / (before the master passion had laid hold of, grappled with, and finally / taken possession of this impulsive and ill-trained young man) when the / result of the morrow's racing would have occupied his every thought, and / would have seemed to his eyes the most important of all earthly / considerations. And all-important indeed it was; for spurred on thereto / by money difficulties, and being but of a weak and unstable character, / Arthur Vavasour had, as the reader must have already gathered, deceived, / and to a certain degree outwitted, the shrewd and rather obstinate old / man, whose ideas of honour and morality were so widely different from / his own. By marrying Sophy Duberly he had for a time escaped the / consequences of his own reckless extravagance, and of the gaming / propensities, the knowledge of which would, as he well knew, have / entirely prevented the union between himself and one of the richest / heiresses of the day; but happiness had not followed upon his sin, nor / had a sense of security been the consequence of his deception.

That Mr. Duberly was not wholly without his misgivings on the score of / the young aristocrat on whom his daughter's maiden affections were fixed / was evidenced by the fact that "nothing was left," as the saying is, in / Arthur's "power. " The allowance that "old Dub" made to his future / heiress was liberal to profuseness; and Arthur himself, had he desired / such an indulgence, might have had his path paved with gold, provided / always that he, the retired Manchester man, was perfectly _au courant_ / of how the money was disposed of, and that his dearly-beloved Sophy trod / the same brilliant way, side by side and lovingly with the partner of / her life. More than this, however, for his son-in-law at least, old Dub / was never likely to do. To have his penny-worth for his penny, to keep / his accounts regularly and systematically, were, in his opinion, among / the first duties of man; and any _known_ neglect of these duties by his / daughter's husband would have annoyed and disquieted him. Well aware of / this "absurdity," as he considered it, on the part of his father-in-law, / Arthur had for some short time after his marriage gone through certain / minor forms calculated to convey the impression that he was a "business / man."