What a world had slipped in between the
mouth of the mine and his mother's cottage! Neither of them said
a word until he had ended.
'Now what am I to make of it, Mother? it's so strange!' he said,
and stopped.
'It's easy enough to see what Curdie has got to make of it, isn't
it, Peter?' said the good woman, turning her face toward all she
could see of her husband's.
'it seems so to me,' answered Peter, with a smile which only the
night saw, but his wife felt in the tone of his words. They were
the happiest couple in that country, because they always understood
each other, and that was because they always meant the same thing,
and that was because they always loved what was fair and true and
right better, not than anything else, but than everything else put
together.
'Then will you tell Curdie?' said she.
'You can talk best, Joan,' said he. 'You tell him, and I will
listen - and learn how to say what I think,' he added.
'I,' said Curdie, 'don't know what to think.'
'it does not matter so much,' said his mother. 'If only you know
what to make of a thing, you'll know soon enough what to think of
it. Now I needn't tell you, surely, Curdie, what you've got to do
with this?'
'I suppose you mean, Mother,' answered Curdie, 'that I must do as
the old lady told me?'
'That is what I mean: what else could it be? Am I not right,
Peter?'
'Quite right, Joan,' answered Peter, 'so far as my judgement goes.
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