d means.
Those that cannot, are bad; and may be counted so at once, and left
alone.'

He looked from her to Edward, and said in a gentler tone:

'In goods and fortune you are now nearly equal. I have been her faithful
steward, and to that remnant of a richer property which my brother left
her, I desire to add, in token of my love, a poor pittance, scarcely
worth the mention, for which I have no longer any need. I am glad you go
abroad. Let our ill-fated house remain the ruin it is. When you return,
after a few thriving years, you will command a better, and a more
fortunate one. We are friends?'

Edward took his extended hand, and grasped it heartily.

'You are neither slow nor cold in your response,' said Mr Haredale,
doing the like by him, 'and when I look upon you now, and know you, I
feel that I would choose you for her husband. Her father had a generous
nature, and you would have pleased him well. I give her to you in his
name, and with his blessing. If the world and I part in this act, we
part on happier terms than we have lived for many a day.'

He placed her in his arms, and would have left the room, but that he was
stopped in his passage to the door by a great noise at a distance, which
made them start and pause.

It was a loud shouting, mingled with boisterous acclamations, that rent
the very air. It drew nearer and nearer every moment, and approached
so rapidly, that, even while they listened, it burst into a deafening
confusion of sounds at the street corner.

'This must be stopped--quieted,' said Mr Haredale, hastily. 'We should
have foreseen this, and provided against it. I will go out to them at
once.'

But, before he could reach the door, and before Edward could catch up
his hat and follow him, they were again arrested by a loud shriek from
above-stairs: and the locksmith's wife, bursting in, and fairly running
into Mr Haredale's arms, cried out:

'She knows it all, dear sir!--she knows it all! We broke it out to her
by degrees, and she is quite prepared.' Having made this communication,
and furthermore thanked Heaven with great fervour and heartiness, the
good lady, according to the custom of matrons, on all occasions of
excitement, fainted away directly.

They ran to the window, drew up the sash, and looked into the crowded
street. Among a dense mob of persons, of whom not one was for an instant
still, the locksmith's ruddy face and burly form could be descried,
beating about as though he w