My mother was sorry too, for she wanted to give him some instructions about rearing a foreign plant which he thought was drooping. “He will be here again in a day or two,” said my father. “If the news he brought has got wind, as I believe it has through his groom, he will scarcely be so well received as usual in the village.” A piece of news being a rare and welcome thing among the inhabitants of Brooke, whether high or low, the whole family party looked eagerly to my father for an explanation. He went on: “Sir Henry tells me that an act of Parliament is likely to be obtained for inclosing Brooke common.” “O, our pretty common!” cried I. “So we shall see it all divided into patches, with ugly hedges and ditches between. I shall never have any pleasure in walking there again.” “And we must give up playing hide and seek among the hillocks,” said one of the boys. “And there will be no place for me to fly my kite,” exclaimed Frederick; “and Arthur must not swim his boat on the pond, I suppose.” “What are the poor people to do with their cows?” added my mother. “You too, my dear!” exclaimed my father, smiling. “I was going to tell the children that they must not set an example of discontent to their poor neighbours; and now, I am afraid, I must begin my lecture with you.” “You will not need,” replied my mother. “I am well convinced that it is right that waste lands should be inclosed: but the first thought which occurred to me was the immediate distress which such a change would cause among the cottagers.” “I am sorry for them,” said my father,“ because they will be full of alarm, and may, by mismanagement, make that an evil which ought to be none. If they choose, they may be the better for this change. Whether they will choose it is the question.” “That they will be the better in the end, I have no doubt,” replied my mother. “But how are they to do without pasture for their cows in the mean time?” “An allotment of land will be given to each,” replied my father, “which may be made much more valuable than the right of common, of which people think so much.” “But, mamma,” said I, “you spoke of the common as waste land, just as if it was of no use to anybody. Surely, if it feeds cows for the whole village, and geese besides, it is quite useful enough?” “Not if it can be made more useful by cultivation, Lucy,” said my father. “It is now but poor pasture for a score of cows and a few geese. If it can be made to produce abundant food for double the number of cattle, and some hundreds of human beings besides, we may well call its present condition waste, in comparison with that which will be.” “But it will be very expensive work to bring it to this state,” argued I. “How much it will cost to make the fences and prepare the ground before anything will grow in it!”