"And in her compassionate tenderness Maum Dulcie did her best to spoil her charge by too great indulgence. * * *
"When at last she aroused from the long trance of her illness, it was to find a face she had dimly feared all her life, bent above her with a rapturous protecting love, to hear a father's voice murmuring: 'My child, my little Dinah, forgive your father for all you have suffered. It is over now, and we will begin a new life hand in hand.' Safe in the purest love man ever gives to woman, she rested on her father's heart; and Maum Dulcie said weeping: 'I dunno but it's a sin to give thanks fur dat Las' Islan' storm, an' I is as sorry as anybody fur de mo'ners an' de dead, but I can't help seein' de good dat de Lord brings out o' calamity."
She dedicates "Like unto Like" to Longfellow in the following verses:
O poet, master in melodius art,
O man, whom many love and all revere,
Take thou with kindly hand, the gift which here
I tender from a loving reverent heart.
For much received from thee I little give,
Yet gladly proffer less, from lesser store;
Knowing that I shall please thee still the more
By thus consenting in thy debt to live.
The story has to do with that time when the South Niobe-like still mourned her dead, and was unable to grasp fully the living present. The opening chapter reveals three Dixie lassies standing on the bridge at sunset—Blythe Herndon, Betty Page and Mary Barton. Each is a real flesh and blood maiden; and while each is southern, they differ much. Below them gurgles a limpid stream and peering into the clear water they see clinging to stones at the bottom moss, which twists itself into fantastic shapes. Above towers a lofty mountain, the setting sun now giving it a glowing aureole; from its base gushes a noble spring, the pride of Yariba, for so this Arcadian village is named. Each maiden speaks of the suggestion that this whirling, twirling moss carries to her mind, and by these and other confidences exchanged on the bridge we are enabled to form some opinion of the dispositions of the young girls, who are important characters in the story.
As the girls talk on the bridge, Mr. and Mrs. Herndon approach. They are still lovers after forty years; and sweet are the memories that crowd upon them now, for it was here they plighted their troth. They find the girls in animated conversation about the advent of a Yankee regiment that is to be stationed at Yariba for the summer. And these loyal young "rebels" are not at all agreed that the officers should be received. Mrs. Tolliver has consented to take Colonel and Mrs. Dexter to board,—brave soul, it cost her many a pang, but she did it to aid her husband's fallen fortunes. This decision causes a flutter, but finally Mrs. Oglethorpe calls and where this lady leads all others follow. With the regiment comes Roger Ellis, a man of middle age, and an ultra-radical. He wins the heart of Blythe Herndon, and then loses it again largely through his own fault.
"But death to the dove
Is the falcon's love—
Oh sharp is the kiss of the falcon's beak!"
It is best to mate with your kind, this lesson the book teaches.