Much like Eliza, Mabel is very similar to a modern-day Simpson: Marge. In The Color Yellow, Mabel plays the Marge role, running off with Virgil to Canada, leaving her horrible husband in the process, and marrying the slave who seems strangely similar to Homer. It might be slightly lazy writing, but there's something comforting in the idea that, no matter where they are in history, and regardless of race, the Homer and Marges of the world wind up together in the end.