The common-law wife.

To be the mistress,
or common-law wife.

Young she was when,
she came to the Swans.

Her parents, gone.

To be indentured then,
a servant girl.

Then love did come,
to the servant girl.

But this being Victorian times.
This uneven match, could not be.

He the son of the master.

Yet children did come,
acknowledged, by the masters son.

Then blessed in the church.

It was not a bad life.
good food,
a warm bed,
children educated,
and later, the masters home.

30 years she waited, but marriage did come.

To this, then the wife,
she becomes ...

* This is a true story grandmother, Elenor Broome