Why, to them the very word 'great-great-grandmother' would have been a week's laughter! I am not sure that they were able quite to believe there were such persons as great-great-grandmothers; they had never seen one.

They were not companions to give the best of help toward progress, and as Curdie grew, he grew at this time faster in body than in mind--with the usual consequence, that he was getting rather stupid--one of the chief signs of which was that he believed less and less in things he had never seen.

At the same time I do not think he was ever so stupid as to imagine that this was a sign of superior faculty and strength of mind.

Still, he was becoming more and more a miner, and less and less a man of the upper world where the wind blew.

On his way to and from the mine he took less and less notice of bees and butterflies, moths and dragonflies, the flowers and the brooks and the clouds.