There was but one circumstance of romance in the simple chronicle. Long ago--the children did not exactly know when, or how, or in what manner--Mr Atheling did somebody an extraordinary and mysterious benefit. Papa was sometimes moved to tell them of it in a general way, sheltering himself under vague and wide descriptions. The story was of a young man, handsome, gay, and extravagant, of rank far superior to Mr Atheling’s--of how he fell into dissipation, and was tempted to crime--and how at the very crisis “I happened to be in the way, and got hold of him, and showed him the real state of the case; how I heard what he was going to do, and of course would betray him; and how, even if he could do it, it would be certain ruin, disgrace, and misery. That was the whole matter,” said Mr Atheling--and his affectionate audience listened with awe and a mysterious interest, very eager to know something more definite of the whole matter than this concise account of it, yet knowing that all interrogation was vain. It was popularly suspected that Mamma knew the full particulars of this bit of romance, but Mamma was as impervious to questions as the other head of the house. There was also a second fytte to this story, telling how Mr Atheling himself undertook the venture of revealing his hapless hero’s misfortunes to the said hero’s elder brother, a very grand and exalted personage; how the great man, shocked, and in terror for the family honour, immediately delivered the culprit, and sent him abroad. “Then he offered me money,” said Mr Atheling quietly. This was the climax of the tale, at which everybody was expected to be indignant; and very indignant, accordingly, everybody was. Yet there was a wonderful excitement in the thought that this hero of Papa’s adventure was now, as Papa intimated, a man of note in the world--that they themselves unwittingly read his name in the papers sometimes, and that other people spoke of him to Mr Atheling as a public character, little dreaming of the early connection between them. How strange it was!--but no entreaty and no persecution could prevail upon Papa to disclose his name. “Suppose we should meet him some time!” exclaimed Agnes, whose imagination sometimes fired with the thought of reaching that delightful world of society where people always spoke of books, and genius was the highest nobility--a world often met with in novels. “If you did,” said Mr Atheling, “it will be all the better for you to know nothing about this,” and so the controversy always ended; for in this matter at least, firm as the most scrupulous old knight of romance, Papa stood on his honour.