A Marriage in High Life, Volume I

Lord Arlingford had, early in life, entangled himself in pecuniary difficulties by every species of thoughtless extravagance, in which an expensive, fashionable wife had assisted him. Her fortune and health both soon declined, and a consumption rapidly carried her to the grave while still in the prime of life, and when her only child, Ernest, was but ten years old. That which extravagance began, indolence soon completed; and long before his son came of age, Lord Arlingford found himself, in the language of the world, to be totally ruined.