This she declared she was unable to do, probably in consequence of the commercial character of the assets; whereupon she received the anti-nuptial contract between her and Frederick Philipse in hen of the inventory, in consequence of its embodying an agreement on his part to adopt the child of Rudolphus as his own, and to bequeath her one half of his estate, unless he had children born to himself, and in that case to give her a share equally with them. Adoption was permitted by the laws, and also the limitation of successory estates by marriage contracts ; and the child thus, in legal intendment, became the child of Frederick Philipse upon the consummation of the marriage in December following." " In October, 1662, bans of marriage between Frederick Philipse and Margaret Hardenbrook were published. In the baptismal record the name of the child is written, Maria This may have been, and probably was, an error of the registrar; certain it is, that Frederick Philipse, by his will," as we shall see bye and bye, "made provision for a child, which he called his oldest daughter, named Eva, who was not his child by marriage, as it seems, and he makes no provision for Maria, as he was bound to do by his marriage contract, unless it be that for Eva. The conclusion, therefore, seems irresistible, that Eva and Maria were one and the same person." " It is not certain when Margaret Harden-brook died, though it Avas not in 1662, as strangely stated by some, for this was the year of her marriage with Frederick Philipse. She was alive and a passenger on the ship with our travelers in 1679, but she must have died before 1692, when Frederick Philipse espoused Catharine Van Cortlandt, widow of John Derval and daughter of Oloff Van Cortlandt, for his second wife."*