This painting is based on a poem by Tennyson based on Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. In the story, Mariana is to marry Angelo, but her dowry is lost in a shipwreck. So, without a dowry and without a husband, she spends five years in a moated grange. However, there is a happy ending when she is reunited with Angelo.
When the painting was first exhibited, only these lines from Tennyson's poem were with it: