“The rector read the service loud and clear:
‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here,’
And so on to the end. At his command
On the fourth finger of her fair left hand
The Governor placed the ring; and that was all:
Martha was Lady Wentworth of the Hall!”
The son of the present owner of the house, Mr. J. Templeman Coolidge, tells me that marrying Martha did not necessarily indicate a loss of caste on the Governor’s part, for it was customary in those days for girls of good families to work in the households of other good families. Further, there are none of the poet’s “stacks of chimneys rising high in air,” nor oaken panels and tapestries. Further still, it is doubtful whether Martha, as a barefoot child about the streets of Portsmouth, ever resolved that some day she would marry the
“... portly person with three-cornered hat,
A crimson velvet coat, head high in air,
Gold-headed cane, and nicely powdered hair