General Wayne was by this time a widower, and Mary Vining was no longer young. But though she was not young she was as beautiful, and witty and charming as ever. She was almost forty when news came to her cousins in Dover that she was engaged to be married to General Wayne. At first they could not believe it. General Wayne was a brave soldier, he was handsome, generous and honest, but he had been brought up on a farm, and he had none of the elegance of the foreign officers, who had been her friends. But Mary Vining loved him, and was determined to marry him. The time for the wedding was set. It was to be in January, and Miss Vining began to make ready for it. Her house was already handsome, but she refurnished it, from top to bottom. General Wayne gave her a set of India china, and she bought a new service of silver. In December, Wayne was sent west by the government, to make a treaty with the Maumee Indians. He had fought with them and defeated them the year before, and they would be more ready to treat with him than with any one else. He was to return to Delaware by the first of January. But the brave soldier never returned. At the first of the year, on New Year’s Day, word was brought to Miss Vining that he had died at Presque Isle, on Lake Erie. Miss Vining immediately put on mourning for General Wayne, and this mourning she never laid aside again as long as she lived. Soon after Wayne’s death, her brother, “The Pet of Delaware,” died too. It was found that he had spent, not only all his own fortune, but his sister’s as well. She was now a poor woman. Nothing was left her but a little house in Wilmington called “The Willows,” which stood where the du Pont building now stands, and which had once belonged to her mother. She was obliged to sell her coach and horses, and she sent away her servants. Her brother had left four children, and she made these her care for the rest of her life. She brought them up and educated them. The china that had been General Wayne’s last gift to her, was never used, but was kept by her as her most precious treasure. She saw almost no one at “The Willows,” but the few who were allowed to visit her, found her always in black, and with her beautiful hair hidden under a widow’s cap. But she was still, even in old age, as gracious, as witty and charming as when she had been the wealthy and courted _Belle of Delaware_.[33] [Illustration: State flower Peach-blossom.] NOTES [29] Quoted from Shakespeare’s “Antony and Cleopatra.”