A Short Chapter About Curdie Curdie spent many nights in the mine.

His father and he had taken Mrs.
Peterson into the secret, for they knew mother could hold her tongue, which was more than could be said of all the miners' wives.
But Curdie did not tell her that every night he spent in the mine, part of it went in earning a new red petticoat for her.
Mrs.Peterson was such a nice good mother! All mothers are nice and good more or less, but Mrs.Peterson was nice and good all more and no less.

She made and kept a little heaven in that poor cottage on the high hillside for her husband and son to go home to out of the low and rather dreary earth in which they worked.

I doubt if the princess was very much happier even in the arms of her huge great-grandmother than Peter and Curdie were in the arms of Mrs.Peterson.

True, her hands were hard and chapped and large, but it was with work for them; and therefore, in the sight of the angels, her hands were so much the more beautiful.