"Nothing," she replied calmly. "I was just going to tell you: they have been taken to the communal incubator."
"What!—Who took them?"
"I don't know."
"Then how do you know where they are gone?"
"By intuition, you stupid. How else should you expect me to know?—It just had to come. I've been predicting it all along."
"I only hope nothing serious has happened to them," he said earnestly.
"Nonsense!" she replied. Then she went on triumphantly: "Think what it will mean for them. They will be hatched scientifically, eugenically. And when our little girls grow up—for some of them may be girls—they will be free women; they will enjoy the happiness of motherhood without its drudgery."
Eustace did not share her enthusiasm. He felt anxious and lonesome.
A week later, the whole barnyard was agog with the news that Martha had hatched out a brood of ducklings.