"I know yer a good daughter" Lottie answered. Her words carefully chosen, just whose daughter did Anne want to be?

"Now, if ye don't want anything from the cupboard, let's go have that tea. It's probably stone cold now."

Anne followed Mrs. Blacke downstairs, quiet, anxious, and despondent. The choice weighed heavily on her. As did the feeling that she had offended Mrs. Blacke. She had said she wanted a ribbon before but had not dared to repeat that just now. But now she worried that Mrs. Blacke thought her cold. Did she feel twice rejected now? Anne bit back her tears.

Eager to restore the relationship, Anne approached the woman when they were downstairs, and gave her another hug. "Thank you for all your care, Mrs. Blacke," she said, mentally begging the woman not to push her away.

Lottie was surprised by the hug. For a girl determined not to be part of the Blacke family, Anne was showing affection like she belonged.

"Oh that's alright dear, ye deserve it. What I'm 'ere for."

They'd been upstairs so long the tea was now bitter and strong - good for a navvie to swing a pick, but less so for a mother and daughter having a chat. Lottie rested the mug down and spied the gilded hairbrush from earlier.

"Oh, didn't ye not want something? A ribbon wasn't it?Or have ye changed yer mind?"

Anne relaxed a little. "Oh, aye, a ribbon. If it's no trouble, Mrs. Blacke. Let me make some fresh tea first. Please sit down."

Tea would be nice for these creeky bones of hers. To sit awhile. Lottie watched as Anne busied herself, she looked a quick hand in the kitchen. Allowing her mind to wander in the quiet, Lottie pondered what Bill might say to another daughter...

Anne was glad to have something practical to do to ground her. She felt a little calmer by the time the water boiled and she took a cloth to carefully take it off the stove and pour it in the pot. "There." She poured the both of them a cup and sat down. Then she smiled at Mrs. Blacke. "You have such a lovely kitchen, Mrs. Blacke."

"Thank ye dear," Lottie sipped her tea "I try to make it a home. Now, 'ow are yer sisters? We saw her Rose just a bit ago, but how's Maggie doin'?"

"I think she's alright. But she seems tired a lot. She's a few months along with the third and it seems a heavy pregnancy..." Anne answered. She dreaded to think that in a few years' time that would be her. In a few months she'd be sixteen, as old as Maggie and Alice had been. Anne wasn't planning to get married and subject herself to the same fate any time soon.

Lottie nodded vigorously, having been through the experience five times herself, she was a veteran of pregnancy. Fortunately, those days were behind her. "Maybe you'll have children yerself one day." the older woman added, clueless of Anne's true desires.

"One day..." Anne said vaguely, wrapping her hands around her cup. "I don't want to marry anytime soon. Being pregnant seems quite awful, especially for a fishwife, and marriage... marriage seems to make so many people unhappy. I mean... not everyone," she said quickly. "You seem happy and yer married. And I think me parents were happy... well when nothing sad happened. But... there are a lot of men who aren't nice and even some of the nice ones treat their wife like they are t' maid. And it really isn't fair, that they act like they are in charge, because the women work just as hard and we are just as smart. But sometimes men act like they're adults and we are children." Anne turned red when she realized how passionately she had been speaking. "I'm sorry. That was unkind."