Dedication and Preamble

TO THE MEMORY OF CHARLES ALLSTON COLLINS. (9th April, 1873)

FIRST SCENE.--The Cottage on the Frontier.

PREAMBLE.

THE place is France.

The time is autumn, in the year eighteen hundred and seventy--the year
of the war between France and Germany.

The persons are, Captain Arnault, of the French army; Surgeon Surville,
of the French ambulance; Surgeon Wetzel, of the German army; Mercy
Merrick, attached as nurse to the French ambulance; and Grace Roseberry,
a traveling lady on her way to England.