y all started home again, Aunt Isabel carrying the
silver-looking flasket.

It was when they were about half-way, that Aunt Isabel suddenly
exclaimed:

"Do you know, I believe I could drink another soda? I feel hotter than
ever--and it looks so good!"

"Why not drink it, then?" asked Mr. Saunders.

"Oh, no," said Aunt Isabel.

"Do," he insisted. "We can go back and get another."

"Well, I'll take a taste," she said.

On the words, she lifted the flasket to her lips and took a long
draught. Then Mr. Saunders, laughing, caught it from her, and he took a
long draught.

Missy felt a wave of icy horror sweep down her spine. She wanted to cry
out in protest. For, even while she stared at them, at Aunt Isabel in
pink organdie and Mr. Saunders in blue serge dividing the flasket of
soda between them, a vision presented itself clearly before her eyes:

La Beale Isoud slenderly tall in a straight girdled gown of grey-green
velvet, head thrown back so that her filleted golden hair brushed her
shoulders, violet eyes half-closed, and an "antique"-looking flasket
clasped in her two slim hands; and Sir Tristram so imperiously dark and
handsome in his crimson, fur-trimmed doublet, his two hands stretched
out and gripping her two shoulders, his black eyes burning as if to
look through her closed lids--the magical love-potion... love that never
would depart for weal neither for woe...

Missy closed her eyes tight, as if fearing what they might behold in the
flesh. But when she opened them again, Aunt Isabel was only gazing into
the drained flasket with a rueful expression.

Then they went back and got another soda for Uncle Charlie. And poor
Uncle Charlie, unsuspecting, seemed to enjoy it.

During the remainder of that evening Missy was unusually subdued. She
realized, of course, that there were no love-potions nowadays; that they
existed only in the Middle Ages; and that the silver flasket contained
everyday ice-cream soda. And she wasn't sure she knew exactly what
the word "symbol" meant, but she felt that somehow the ice-cream soda,
shared between them, was symbolic of that famous, fateful drink. She
wished acutely that this second episode, so singularly parallel, hadn't
happened.

She was still absorbed in gloomy meditations when Mr. Saunders arose to
go.

"Oh, it's early yet," protested Uncle Charlie--dear, kind, ignorant
Uncle Charlie!

"But I've got to catch the ten-thirty-five," said Mr. Saunders.

"Why can't