Betsy was a lovely young actress from England, alone and starving in New York City at the dawn of the American Revolution. It was an unenviable position, for actors were considered to be the dregs of society in the largely Puritan colonies, and were rejected and scorned by everyone. Dan was a young Colonial from a farming family in Connecticut, on his way through New York travelling to enlist with the American forces. A chance meeting in the street leads him to take responsibility for the newly orphaned Betsy, and take her home to his family in the only way he could in that Puritan society-as his wife!Betsy finds the small town of Danbury and its inhabitants close-knit and surprisingly open-minded... except where she is concerned! And her new in-laws are horrified by this actress Dan has dropped on their doorstep. Can she ever find acceptance and a place in this new life? And will Dan ever come to love her as his Dear Wife?