Mabel held my gaze a moment longer, then brought her hand to her chin and struck the thinker’s pose. After a moment, she said, “Nah, I don’t reckon I will.” And as if to emphasise her point, the last word turned into a phlegmy cough so violent I thought it would shake her bones loose. It was enough to bring me back to myself.

“Enough joking,” Lizzie said, her hand gentle on Mabel’s back.

When Mabel’s coughing stopped and my tears dried, I asked, “Morbs, Mabel? What does it mean?”

“It’s a sadness that comes and goes,” she said, pausing for breath. “I get the morbs, you get the morbs, even Miss Lizzie ’ere gets the morbs, though she’d never let on. A woman’s lot, I reckon.”

“It must derive from morbid,” I said to myself as I began to write out the slip.

“I reckon it derives from grief,” said Mabel. “From what we’ve lost and what we’ve never ’ad and never will. As I said, a woman’s lot. It should be in your dictionary. It’s too common not to be understood.”

Lizzie and I left the Covered Market, each with our own thoughts. Mabel’s state had been a shock.

“Where does she live?” I was ashamed I’d never thought about it before.

“Workhouse Infirmary on Cowley Road,” said Lizzie. “A wretched place full of wretched people.”

“You’ve been?”

“Took her there myself. Found her sleeping on the street, a pile of rags draped across that crate of hers. Thought she was dead.”

“What can I do?”

“Keep buying her whittling and writing down her words. You can’t change what is.”

“Do you really believe that, Lizzie?”

She looked at me, wary of the question.

“Surely things could change if enough people wanted them to,” I continued. I told her about Muriel Matters speaking in Parliament.

“I can’t see nothing changing for the likes of Mabel. All that ruckus the suffragettes make, it isn’t for women like her and me. It’s for ladies with means, and such ladies will always want someone else to scrub their floors and empty their pots.” There was an edge to her voice I’d rarely heard. “If they get the vote, I’ll still be Mrs. Murray’s bondmaid.”

Bondmaid. If I hadn’t found it and explained what it meant would Lizzie see herself differently?

“Yet it sounds as though you’d change things, if you could,” I said.

Lizzie shrugged, then paused to put down her bags. She rubbed her hands where the handles had left red grooves. My own bag was lighter, but I did the same.

“You know,” she said, when we were on our way again, “Mabel thinks her words will end up in the Dictionary, with her name against them. I heard her bragging to Mrs. Stiles, and I didn’t have the heart to right her.”