Seventy more beans. "Three score and ten," thought Sarah Brown. "What's
that? Only a lifetime." She bent to her work.

A great clump of buttercups bestrode her bean row, and as after a
struggle she dragged its protesting roots from the earth, something fell
from it.

"Oh, a nest," she gasped. "Look, I have hoed up a nest."

"Good gracious," exclaimed a fairy. "Look what she's done. It's
Clement's nest, poor chap, he only married in February. Say, girls,
here's Clement's semi-detached gone up."

Cries of consternation were heard from every bean-row.

Clement's nest was really almost more than semi-detached. It had been
but lightly wedged between two buttercup stalks. The two eggs in it were
at once unseated, and one was broken. Sarah Brown was deeply distressed.

"What a blind fool I am," she said, trying helplessly to replace the
nest. "Won't Clement ever come back?"

"Mrs. Clement won't," said the nearest fairy. "She is almost hysterical
about the sanctity of the home, and all that. She'll probably get a
divorce now."

"Oh, poor Clement, poor Clement," said Sarah Brown. "Will he be terribly
cut up?"