Senator VanDyke, the father of the bride, gave orders that the door and windows should be left open, so that the people outside could see the General and also the wedding party. Afterward, he went to take supper and spend the night, with George Read, 2nd, the son of the signer of the Declaration of Independence. The next morning, he was driven over to Frenchtown, Maryland, on the Elk river, where he was met and welcomed by the Marylanders. So Lafayette passed through Delaware, on his tour through the States, and so the Delaware people welcomed him. It was a beautiful greeting, and Delaware may well be proud of the day when Lafayette was here. [Illustration: Old Tatnall House—Brandywine Village—Wilmington] NOTES [34] The ferry landings were near the Brandywine Flour Mills on one side, and at the foot of King Street on the other. [35] Mrs. John Connel afterward went to France, and was the guest of the Lafayette family for six months. She was presented at the Court of Louis Philippe, and the King gave her a handsome lace fan, which is still preserved in the family. [Illustration] How Once Upon A Time Mason And Dixon Ran A Boundary [Illustration: “A Rose—at Michaelmas”] OF ALL the States belonging to the United States of America, there are no two that are of the same size or shape. Some are big and some are little. One is almost square. One is shaped like a boot. Delaware, has two boundaries, one on the west and one on the south, that are perfectly straight. On the east the boundary follows the line of the Delaware River and bay. The northern line of the State is an arc, or part of a circle. If you put a pin through the little dot on the map that is marked “New Castle,” and tie a thread to it and measure, you will find how perfect this arc of the circle is, and you will also find that New Castle is the centre of the circle. Why should Delaware have this queer curved northern boundary? It is because, many years ago, as this book has told once before, in 1681, King Charles the Second of England gave what is now Pennsylvania to William Penn. In that grant, Penn was given “that extensive forest lying twelve miles northward of New Castle, on the northern side of the Delaware,” the southern boundary of which was a circle drawn twelve miles distant from New Castle northward and westward. Penn, at first, was contented with this grant from King Charles. But when he looked over his land grant carefully, he saw that it would be much better for Pennsylvania to have at least a strip of land that would run along one side of the Delaware River and down to the Delaware Bay. This land had been already given by the King, to his brother, the Duke of York.