This Book is Dedicated.


* * * * *




PREFACE.


The following Papers contain the last records of the Peterkin Family,
who unhappily ventured to leave their native land and have never
returned. Elizabeth Eliza's Commonplace Book has been found among the
family papers, and will be published here for the first time. It is
evident that she foresaw that the family were ill able to contend with
the commonplace struggle of life; and we may not wonder that they could
not survive the unprecedented, far away from the genial advice of
friends, especially that of the Lady from Philadelphia.

It is feared that Mr. and Mrs. Peterkin lost their lives after leaving
Tobolsk, perhaps in some vast conflagration.

Agamemnon and Solomon John were probably sacrificed in some effort to
join in or control the disturbances which arose in the distant places
where they had established themselves,--Agamemnon in Madagascar, Solomon
John in Rustchuk.

The little boys have merged into men in some German university, while
Elizabeth Eliza must have been lost in the mazes of the Russian language.