Martha Hilton, the heroine of the romance, was "a careless, laughing, bare-footed girl." One day a neighbor saw her, in a short dress, carrying a pail of water in the street. "You, Pat! You, Pat! Why do you go looking so? You should be ashamed to be seen in the street!" was the shocked comment. But the answer was not what the neighbor expected. "No matter how I look, I shall ride in my chariot yet, Marm."
The story of what followed is told by Charles W. Brewster, a historian of old Portsmouth:
"Martha Hilton afterwards left home, and went to live in the Governor's mansion at Little Harbor, doing the work of the kitchen, and keeping the house in order, much to the Governor's satisfaction.... The Governor has invited a dinner party, and with many other guests, in his cocked hat comes the beloved Rev. Arthur Brown, of the Episcopal church. The dinner is served up in a style becoming the Governor's table.... There is a whisper from the Governor to a messenger, and at his summons Martha Hilton comes in from that door on the west of the parlor, and, with blushing countenance, stands in front of the fireplace. She seems heedless of the fire—she does not appear to have brought anything in, nor does she seem to be looking for anything to carry out—there she stands! a damsel of twenty summers—for what, no visitor can tell.
"The Governor, bleached by the frosts of sixty winters, rises. 'Mr. Brown, I wish you to marry me.' 'To whom?' asks his pastor, in wondering surprise. 'To this lady,' was the reply. The rector stood confounded. The Governor became imperative. 'As the Governor of New Hampshire I command you to marry me!' The ceremony was then duly performed, and from that time Martha Hilton became Lady Wentworth."
Longfellow's record of the incident is given in the poem, "Lady Wentworth":
"The years came and ... the years went, seven in all,
And all these years had Martha Hilton served
In the Great House, not wholly unobserved:
By day, by night, the silver crescent grew,
Though hidden by clouds, the light still shining through;