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Contents
Cover Page
About This eBook
Half Title Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication Page
Contents at a Glance
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
About the Author
1. Pythonic Thinking
Item 1: Know Which Version of Python You’re Using
Item 2: Follow the PEP 8 Style Guide
Item 3: Know the Differences Between bytes and str
Item 4: Prefer Interpolated F-Strings Over C-style Format
Strings and str.format
Item 5: Write Helper Functions Instead of Complex
Expressions
Item 6: Prefer Multiple Assignment Unpacking Over
Indexing
Item 7: Prefer enumerate Over range
Item 8: Use zip to Process Iterators in Parallel
Item 9: Avoid else Blocks After for and while Loops
Item 10: Prevent Repetition with Assignment Expressions
2. Lists and Dictionaries
Item 11: Know How to Slice Sequences
Item 12: Avoid Striding and Slicing in a Single Expression
Item 13: Prefer Catch-All Unpacking Over Slicing
Item 14: Sort by Complex Criteria Using the key Parameter
Item 15: Be Cautious When Relying on dict Insertion
Ordering
Item 16: Prefer get Over in and KeyError to Handle
Missing Dictionary Keys
Item 17: Prefer defaultdict Over setdefault to Handle
Missing Items in Internal State
Item 18: Know How to Construct Key-Dependent Default
Values with __missing__
3. Functions
Item 19: Never Unpack More Than Three Variables When
Functions Return Multiple Values
Item 20: Prefer Raising Exceptions to Returning None
Item 21: Know How Closures Interact with Variable Scope
Item 22: Reduce Visual Noise with Variable Positional
Arguments
Item 23: Provide Optional Behavior with Keyword
Arguments
Item 24: Use None and Docstrings to Specify Dynamic
Default Arguments
Item 25: Enforce Clarity with Keyword-Only and Positional-
Only Arguments
Item 26: Define Function Decorators with functools.wraps
4. Comprehensions and Generators
Item 27: Use Comprehensions Instead of map and filter
Item 28: Avoid More Than Two Control Subexpressions in
Comprehensions
Item 29: Avoid Repeated Work in Comprehensions by Using
Assignment Expressions
Item 30: Consider Generators Instead of Returning Lists
Item 31: Be Defensive When Iterating Over Arguments
Item 32: Consider Generator Expressions for Large List
Comprehensions
Item 33: Compose Multiple Generators with yield from
Item 34: Avoid Injecting Data into Generators with send
Item 35: Avoid Causing State Transitions in Generators with
throw
Item 36: Consider itertools for Working with Iterators and
Generators
5. Classes and Interfaces
Item 37: Compose Classes Instead of Nesting Many Levels
of Built-in Types
Item 38: Accept Functions Instead of Classes for Simple
Interfaces
Item 39: Use @classmethod Polymorphism to Construct
Objects Generically
Item 40: Initialize Parent Classes with super
Item 41: Consider Composing Functionality with Mix-in
Classes
Item 42: Prefer Public Attributes Over Private Ones
Item 43: Inherit from collections.abc for Custom
Container Types
6. Metaclasses and Attributes
Item 44: Use Plain Attributes Instead of Setter and Getter
Methods
Item 45: Consider @property Instead of Refactoring
Attributes
Item 46: Use Descriptors for Reusable @property Methods
Item 47: Use __getattr__, __getattribute__, and
__setattr__ for Lazy Attributes
Item 48: Validate Subclasses with __init_subclass__
Item 49: Register Class Existence with __init_subclass__
Item 50: Annotate Class Attributes with __set_name__
Item 51: Prefer Class Decorators Over Metaclasses for
Composable Class Extensions
7. Concurrency and Parallelism
Item 52: Use subprocess to Manage Child Processes
Item 53: Use Threads for Blocking I/O, Avoid for Parallelism
Item 54: Use Lock to Prevent Data Races in Threads
Item 55: Use Queue to Coordinate Work Between Threads
Item 56: Know How to Recognize When Concurrency Is
Necessary
Item 57: Avoid Creating New Thread Instances for On-
demand Fan-out
Item 58: Understand How Using Queue for Concurrency
Requires Refactoring
Item 59: Consider ThreadPoolExecutor When Threads Are
Necessary for Concurrency
Item 60: Achieve Highly Concurrent I/O with Coroutines
Item 61: Know How to Port Threaded I/O to asyncio
Item 62: Mix Threads and Coroutines to Ease the Transition
to asyncio
Item 63: Avoid Blocking the asyncio Event Loop to
Maximize Responsiveness
Item 64: Consider concurrent.futures for True Parallelism
8. Robustness and Performance
Item 65: Take Advantage of Each Block in
try/except/else/finally
Item 66: Consider contextlib and with Statements for
Reusable try/finally Behavior
Item 67: Use datetime Instead of time for Local Clocks
Item 68: Make pickle Reliable with copyreg
Item 69: Use decimal When Precision Is Paramount
Item 70: Profile Before Optimizing
Item 71: Prefer deque for Producer–Consumer Queues
Item 72: Consider Searching Sorted Sequences with bisect
Item 73: Know How to Use heapq for Priority Queues
Item 74: Consider memoryview and bytearray for Zero-Copy
Interactions with bytes
9. Testing and Debugging
Item 75: Use repr Strings for Debugging Output
Item 76: Verify Related Behaviors in TestCase Subclasses
Item 77: Isolate Tests from Each Other with setUp,
tearDown, setUpModule, and tearDownModule
Item 78: Use Mocks to Test Code with Complex
Dependencies
Item 79: Encapsulate Dependencies to Facilitate Mocking
and Testing
Item 80: Consider Interactive Debugging with pdb
Item 81: Use tracemalloc to Understand Memory Usage
and Leaks
10. Collaboration
Item 82: Know Where to Find Community-Built Modules
Item 83: Use Virtual Environments for Isolated and
Reproducible Dependencies
Item 84: Write Docstrings for Every Function, Class, and
Module
Item 85: Use Packages to Organize Modules and Provide
Stable APIs
Item 86: Consider Module-Scoped Code to Configure
Deployment Environments
Item 87: Define a Root Exception to Insulate Callers from
APIs
Item 88: Know How to Break Circular Dependencies
Item 89: Consider warnings to Refactor and Migrate Usage
Item 90: Consider Static Analysis via typing to Obviate
Bugs
Index
Code Snippets
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Praise for Effective Python
Lillie and Mary in passing Miss Lane’s door found it ajar, and
looked in curiously at the pictures, curious boxes and books that
adorned it, all arranged with most exquisite neatness and taste.
“Well, I’d like to see those pictures; come,” and she pushed the
door open.
“Why? what need you care? The room’s in your father’s house.”
“I know; such a stiff old maid, too. You’ll all be just like her. Well,
I’m going in. I wonder if there are many pictures in that album; I’m
going to look.”
“You all act as if you were afraid of her. She isn’t mistress here
yet. Mamma said may-be she’d be your stepmother sometime; how
would you like that?”
In the mean time, Mary was examining one by one the contents of
the room, opening books and boxes, and peering about, full of
curiosity.
Lillie’s cheeks crimsoned; she stood with clasped hands and loud
beating heart, surveying the fragments.
“Ah!” she thought, “if I had only not given up at first—if I had only
never touched it—it was so wrong. Mamma used to tell us that we
were always punished for doing wrong, even if no one saw us: and
now I know that is why I broke the vase. Miss Lane cannot trust me
when she knows it; and, oh, she said she would rather we troubled
her every minute with mischief than to see us do one dishonorable
thing. She will be sure to find it out too, oh, dear! and I never can
tell her; it frightens me to think of it. What shall I do? I am so
unhappy;” and the child buried her head in the sofa cushions,
sobbing aloud.
By and by she crept into the parlor, quite pale and subdued, worn
out by the ceaseless reproaches of her conscience, and waited in
much sadness for her papa’s coming. The children were in great glee
watching the snow as it came softly down, and listening to the loud
howling of the wind round the house, happy in their good home, the
loving hearts around them, and the bright firelight.
How little they knew of the great world, with the sin, suffering,
and death in it; of the dying, despairing thousands on God’s earth,
crying out to him in sore pain and need, the day of their rejoicing
long since passed!
“Did you go to see all the scholars? And did you find out who it
was that sat on the end of the bench last Sunday?”
“Yes; her name is Phœbe Birch, and I went to her house. She has
a stepmother who is not kind to her. Her father was sitting in a
corner of the room; he had been drinking; and when I went in,
Phœbe was crying. Her eyes were quite red and swollen; she
brightened at the sight of me; but I was too much afraid of both the
father and mother to talk much to her, poor child! At last I asked her
if she would not come regularly to Sunday-school, and gave her a
little Prayer-book, which seemed to make her very happy. The
mother scolded and said, ‘She was good for nothing already, and she
did not think going to Sunday-school would make her any better.’ I
told her that I hoped it would. But when I had got out of the close
little room, from that hard scowling woman and the drunken man,
into the fresh air, I could scarcely bear to think of poor little Phœbe’s
spending all her life there.”
Miss Lane looked round the beautiful rooms, her eye glancing
through an open door to the glittering table awaiting them with its
delicacies, and she sighed heavily. Her cloak lay on the sofa; she was
holding her hat by one string, and Lillie was trembling, lest any
moment she might go up to her own room to put them away, and so
discover the mischief that had been done. What would she have
given to live over that day again, that she might have left that
undone?
It was too late then, and her face blanched as Miss Lane,
gathering up her things, went gaily up stairs to brush her hair. In a
little while she came down again, and Lillie’s watchful eyes saw—as
no doubt she expected—a change in her face immediately.
“Has any one been in my room to-day?” she inquired. There was a
chorus of Noes, and she continued:
“Some one or some thing has knocked my Cologne bottle off the
bureau, and I found it lying shattered on the floor.”
“It must have been Sallie,” said Jennie, “she is so careless; she
spilled all the ink in my bottle on the parlor carpet yesterday.”
“What were you doing with ink in the parlor?” asked Miss Lane.
She walked toward the door. Lillie started up to stop her; but the
words died on her lip. She could not utter them; she could not bear
to see the expression of disapproval gathering upon her teacher’s
face, to know her trust was forfeited, and feel the punishment
deserved.
“She says she never touched the bureau, and seemed much hurt
at my suspecting her,” answered Miss Lane, sitting down by the
window with a grave air, and looking out upon the snow in silence.
“You need not believe her,” continued Jennie, “she is not true. Mrs.
Hall can’t teach her to be.”
“I have good reason to believe her,” was the answer; and Mr.
Graham’s arrival at that moment caused the children to rush with a
shout to meet him, forgetting Sallie and the Cologne bottle.
CHAPTER IV.
UT if you go to-night, Miss Lane, we cannot finish
Evangeline.”
“I don’t like to read aloud a thing that I have read again and
again. I don’t like to play games that you little ones like. I don’t care
to play for you, when each one can do it for himself.”
Miss Lane looked at Jennie gravely. The little girl’s lip began to
quiver, her eyes filled.
The tears were rolling over Jennie’s cheeks now, and Miss Lane
sat in silence, wishing the child’s sensitiveness were not so exquisite.
The gentlest chiding touched the quick—it was almost a cruelty to
rebuke, even when rebuke was needed. That word “selfish” had set
Jennie’s heart-strings to quivering; and thoughtlessness, as much as
anything else, had prompted her first speech; so she sat downcast,
bearing her pain in silence, while her teacher was almost as much
grieved as she.
“I think it would not be quite kind to sit alone and read to yourself
all the evening, when the rest are so anxious to finish the story, and
you know but one can have the book at a time.”
“She could not have liked it,” pondered the child, and the first dim
consciousness of duty rose in her mind to puzzle her. Sorely troubled
was Jennie; she did not fancy giving up her own will in anything.
She had an instinctive dislike to law and order, to getting up early,
setting things to right, and losing her own pleasure.
A little flash of light seemed let into her soul, and all her daily
wrong-doing lay clear before her. She read selfishness on all, or at
the best, thoughtlessness for others’ pleasure. Before her like a
picture, she saw her dear mother stretched on her patient bed of
pain, smiling ever to keep sadness out of the hearts of her little
ones, and fading slowly day by day out of their beautiful bright world
into what seemed loneliness, chilliness, darkness to Jennie in her
fresh youth. Now and then the sweet weak voice had begged her
daughter to read the Word of Life to her as she went through the
valley of the Shadow of Death; and many times this seemed a
wearisome task. How glad the child would have been to remember
having volunteered once to cheer her mother’s waiting-time with the
words of Jesus! Such anguish as it was then to know that many
times the mild request for a Psalm or the lessons of the day had
been met by a frowning, fretful compliance. Too late, too late,
thought Jennie with anguish and yearning for
“The touch of the vanished hand,
And the sound of the voice that was still.”
And almost the last words that dear mother had uttered were:
It had been long ago in her child life, when time is counted by
hours and days, and we think a year so long, since her mother went
to rest, but it was not till that hour that the meaning of her mother’s
words came to her. There had never seemed to be much need for
the exercise of her care over the little ones; so she thought. It
seemed as if there were nothing she could do—at least nothing that
she liked to do—teaching the Catechism, reading aloud, telling
stories and such things were so disagreeable, and she could not
have patience with the little ones.
While Jennie was sitting at the window, looking out on the winter
scene and thinking, with the tears drying on her cheek, Miss Lane
had gone to the piano, and was playing softly—she was singing too,
in a low voice, and the silent darkness was creeping over the lawn
under the trees and into the room, gathering shadows on the walls
and settling stilly over the fields and sky.
Deep and touching was the voice, as were the words, and a
feeling of awe, pain, and strange longing love filled the heart of the
child, and her soul went out in prayer to the Saviour who died for
her, to keep her in his ways and make her spirit white.
That same evening, after Miss Lane had gone to stay with poor
dying Phœbe Birch, Jennie finished the story to her little brother and
sisters; played her papa’s favorite songs, and went to bed infinitely
rewarded for her sacrifice in the “peace of mind which passeth
understanding.”
The morning before, Phœbe had gone down stairs to make the
fire and prepare breakfast. It was a chilly morning, and the child’s
garments were very thin, but she was very happy. She had a friend.
In all the wide world, a few weeks before, there had been no one to
greet her pleasantly, no one to care whether she lived or died, and
her poor heart was aching, aching all the time for that love which
every child claims as its right.
How beautiful it all was! The children were singing; and into the
sensitive, wounded spirit of the child crept a strange, soothing
peace, as if the great world of pain and sin were shut out from her
forever.
Heaven must be like that, she thought, and her eyes rested on a
fair face near her with a sort of reverent admiration. It was a face
patient and calm, with a touch of sadness in it though the eyes
looked ever upward, and the lips smiled. The brow was clear and
broad and white, the hair bright and smooth, and children’s faces
turned lovingly to meet the gentle glances cast upon them from
those unclouded blue eyes.
For one moment, this lady with her grace and exceeding
refinement, passing her delicate fingers over the organ keys,
seemed as far off from the child as the angels in heaven; but when
her soft voice had inquired Phœbe’s name, when those lily hands
held her own brown hand, some of Phœbe’s awe vanished, and a
warm, grateful love sprang up in its place.
And after that the working, suffering days never seemed so long.
Somehow, the thought of Sunday brightened all the week, and
Phœbe lifted up her heart. Sometimes, indeed many times, Miss
Lane came to see her and gave her books. Once or twice the child
had spent an hour in her kind friend’s own dainty room. And when at
last she became “a member of Christ, the child of God, and an
inheritor of the kingdom of heaven,” Miss Lane stood near to
encourage, and ever since had been pointing out the way in which
she should walk.
So she lighted the fire and sat fanning it into a blaze with her
apron, thinking, with a thrill of delight, that to-day Miss Lane was to
begin teaching her to knit fancy knitting. She had promised to find
sale for any articles that Phœbe might make; and such a bright
vision rose before her fancy that she clapped her hands and laughed
aloud—such a picture of a winter cloak, a hood, and a little offering
to the Sunday School, which it burned her cheek to think she had
never been able to give. And on Christmas morning she would go
herself to Lyle’s to buy a bouquet for Miss Lane, one made up of
delicate, pure flowers like the lady herself, with heliotrope and
geranium leaves.
She liked to look at the sky, and watch the clouds at sunset, for
God seemed just beyond them, and her loneliness left her when she
remembered that He was her Father, and a beautiful hope was in her
heart, that she, the believing child, might save that erring, earthly
parent.
So, when the blaze sprang up, Phœbe, under the influence of its
warmth, grew drowsy and fell asleep, and dreamed. While she
dreamed, the messenger came; slowly the flame crept towards her,
and a spark rested on her cotton dress; it glowed and spread and
crackled, then burst into a flame and bathed her in a stream of fire.
Her father and mother were asleep up stairs, but her dreadful,
agonized screams soon reached their ears.
When they burst into the room, the panting, trembling, shrieking
child was rolling on the floor, blackened, burnt, a pitiful sight for
human eyes. She had wrapped a piece of carpet about her, and so
put out the dreadful fire; but the agony of those few seconds who
can tell?
She bore it all, the dreadful, sickening dressing of the burns, her
faintness, and the coarse words of the step-mother, who reproached
her even then; she bore it because Miss Lane held her hand,
whispered her words of Jesus, and cooled her brow, praying God to
help her bear it. He did help her, and a wonderful patience and
sweetness came into her soul, so that heaven seemed to lie not far
off.
She could not bear, at first, that her comforter should leave her,
but one word on the duty of resignation dried her tears, and she
waited in calmness till her dear friend came to her again.
Every moment that she could spare from her duties, Miss Lane
devoted to the sufferer. Her soft fingers soothed when none others
had the power, and when the pain was torture she sang the young
girl into quietness, lifting her soul to God in prayer, and cheering her
when the fear of death was strong. So two days passed, and a
second night of watching came.
CHAPTER V.
ILLIE had never spent such miserable days as those two
when the warfare with her conscience was waging
continually. Everything went wrong, nothing gave her any
pleasure, she was thoroughly miserable, and so irritable
that she had to be sent two or three times each day to her room for
cross answers and ill conduct.
She knew quite well that she could have no peace till she
confessed her fault, she saw that she could not do right till that spot
on her usual truth and sincerity had been washed out. But timidity
held her back; she kept putting off the evil day, and rose each
morning with a sense of heaviness and depression about her,
resolving to get rid of the weight before another night came.
She could not pray, for while she said the words she knew the act
was mockery, because she was continuing in wilful sin. So, this
safeguard being removed, the child fancied herself falling into sins
innumerable, and darkening all the hours of the day with the
shadow of one fault.
She drew back, the soft “good-bye” was uttered, the slight figure
flitted through the door, and in a second was skimming down the
lawn with quick, graceful motions. It was too late!
“You must not go down, you know, Miss Lane told us not to have
anything to do with her.”
“For shame, Lillie! I’ll tell papa. What would he say if he heard you
speak so?”
“I’m not going to sit still, shut up in the house all day. Besides,
what is the harm? Mary Noel don’t hurt anybody.”
“It is wrong to do what your teacher tells you not to do. You know
Mary Noel is not a good girl.”
“She’s as good as anybody. You don’t like her, nor care to play
with her at all, or you would not be so obedient all at once.”
“Don’t you want to go and slide? It is fine on the ice, Lillie,” she
exclaimed.
“Miss Lane and papa don’t like Lillie to go on the ice alone,”
answered Jennie, quickly.
“That was when the ice was thinner,” interposed Lillie, angry at her
interference.
“What a baby you are, to care for everything Miss Lane says. I
don’t see what right she has to rule you.”
“She don’t rule us,” cried Jennie, indignantly; but Lillie, whose
wrong-doing had not been without its effect upon her sense of
justice and natural nobleness, began to consider herself an ill-used
person, and flushed crimson at the thought of being “ruled.”
“She does,” continued Mary; “why, the other afternoon, Lillie was
afraid——”
“What was she afraid of? What have you been doing?”
“I’ll go now, and Mrs. Hill will lock you up, if I speak to her.”
“I did not care about going on the ice,” said Lillie, standing up and
looking wrathfully at Jennie, “but since you have made yourself so
disagreeable about it, I will go. So there’s nobody to blame but
yourself. Papa has told you never to speak to me in that manner,
many a time.”
The two strode down stairs and out of the house with much
dignity, leaving Jennie in great anger. But presently, the excitable
girl’s nerves grew more quiet, a feeling of sorrow took the place of
her wrath, and her tender conscience began to accuse her of
hastiness and sinfulness in provoking her sister. It was not long
before every other thought was forgotten in an intense feeling of
self-reproach, and, like all impulsive persons, she went quickly from
one extreme to another, and acquitted Lillie of all blame, laying it
upon herself.
She ran out along the bank of the lake, and called the two girls
loudly. They were sliding near the shore, and Jennie’s anger and
impatience returned at the sight of them in safety, disobeying the
commands of those to whom they owed obedience; so that another
scene of quarrelling took place, and Jennie went back sobbing with
vexation, and Lillie continued to slide, more obstinate and hardened
than before.
“Let us go out further,” proposed Mary, “the ice is smoother nearer
the other side.”
So on they slid till they reached a broad, square place, where Mr.
Graham’s men had been cutting ice, with a thin coating as smooth
as glass upon it.
Foolish child that she was, Lillie could not bear to acknowledge
that she was afraid.
“You are afraid!” exclaimed Mary, with a loud laugh, seeing her
hesitate. “I dare you to cross it. It is not thin.”
“I knew you were. See, you’re only trying to get out of it.”
With a crimson face and her heart beating loudly, the little girl
advanced upon the treacherous ice. She had just gone beyond the
edge of the thick part, when a crack and a shriek rang upon the air,
and she felt herself going down. It was all the work of an instant,
like a flash, though neither remembered exactly how it happened.
Mary caught the clothes of the sinking child, and drew her out,
dripping, shivering, and pale with fright, upon the thick ice. There
they looked at each other an instant, and then began to sob with
nervous excitement.
She was too much subdued to heed Jennie’s “I told you so,” and
“You might have known,” but submitted to Mrs. Hill’s rather rough
usage in meekness, obeying her sentence of going to bed and taking
a hot drink, in silence.
And there she lay in solitude, weeping over her sin, resolving to do
better in the future, starting up with a great thrill of terror when the
thought that she might even then have been in God’s presence with
the unrepented sin on her soul, came into her mind.
“I will tell Miss Lane just as soon as she comes home,” she said to
herself again and again, and as the night came on, she sat listening
eagerly for the light steps of the teacher. Jennie came creeping in
with a penitent face, after a while, to show her completed drawing,
and to tell her, shyly but earnestly, how sorry she was for her share
in the afternoon’s disaster.
Presently, as she lay there alone, listening for sounds in the large,
still house, she heard the joyful outcry that welcomed her papa, and
a few seconds after, the light, tripping step of Miss Lane sounded
near the door. Pretty soon, she was heard descending, and then the
buzzing of voices, as the parlor door was opened, came confusedly
to her ear.
A moment more and the sound was shut out from her, and Sallie
came up with a tray, and her nice tea arranged upon it—she saw at
a glance—by Miss Lane’s own hands.
But Lillie was almost too sad and depressed to eat. Her heart was
very full of tears by this time, as she thought that her own fault had
shut her out from the light and warmth and pleasure down stairs.
She heard the piano soon, and voices of happy laughter reached her
faintly, borne through the long empty halls and quiet rooms up
stairs. But these sounds of mirth, instead of enlivening her, only
made her sadder.
The great tears ran down her cheeks as she thought how little she
was missed, and wondered if her papa would come to say “good
night” to her. The moonlight began to shine in at her window. She
got up and looked out at her mamma’s grave, and wept again in her
loneliness and gloom. The door opened softly, and turning round
quickly, she saw her papa standing grave and sorrowful before her.
“I’m sorry to hear what my little Lillie has been doing,” he said,
sadly.
“But that will not undo it, my child, it cannot give me back my
trust in your honor and truth.”
It was very bitter. What would she have given to blot out all those
last days? Her guilty pleasure seemed so very worthless now, and
she had given in exchange her papa’s esteem, Miss Lane’s
confidence, her peace of mind. She sat with her head bent down in
humiliation, while her papa stood over her with the face which he
had worn when her mamma died. Lillie could not bear it.
“My dear, I forgive you—you must not forget that there is some
one else whose pardon you must ask. You have displeased God no
less than me—and you are His baptized child, you know.”
Lillie hung her head, and her papa, kissing her again, left her to
seek that pardon, which she did seek humbly and with tears. Before
she slept she opened her heart to her teacher also, and received an
assurance of forgiveness.
“Oh, Miss Lane, I have been so unhappy. I wanted to tell you, but
I was afraid, and I really thought it very mean to go into your room
without permission.”
“But you listened to the tempter twice, my dear, and you see what
the consequences have been. If you had resisted the first time, it
would not have been so easy to fall the second. Every time we yield,
we lose one portion of strength, and by familiarity with sin, our
horror of it passes quickly away. There might come a time, my dear,
when a deceitful, disobedient action would not trouble your
conscience at all.”
“Oh, Miss Lane! But, indeed, there are so many things to make me
naughty, and Jennie was so cross and overbearing that I would go.”
The air was soft and fresh, and quite still; the snow was like an
exquisitely pure carpet under her feet, and here and there, a branch,
laden with its weight of pearls, bent over the path.
It was more like a dream than anything real, for the trees wore a
foliage fairy-like in its delicacy, and a gray sky hung over the whole.
Sounds came muffled to her ears, and the brook was ice-bound.
Everything was so strangely, wonderfully beautiful, that her heart
was thrilled, and she was half afraid to think how very glad she was
—how very fair the world seemed. So, moving on quickly in the
lightness of her heart, pushing the snow with her feet, she came out
of the long avenue of crystal, and knocked at the cottage door.
“She was took bad in the night, ma’am,” was the step-mother’s
reply to her inquiries, and the awful nearness of death fell upon the
marvellous loveliness of the day, changing the bounding gladness of
the lady’s heart into a calm, quiet sadness, and leaving an impress
of wonder and fright on the hard face of the woman, as they stood
in the presence of that soul so near the borders of the silent land.
“She’s been lying just so for two hours, Miss. I can’t get her to
open her eyes or to speak. The doctor’s been here, and he says
’taint no use; so he went away again.”
The perfectly white face of the child was upturned towards them,
her eyes were closed, and deep black circles enclosed them, sunken
in their sockets. The battle of life was almost over. The little gleam of
brighter days was about to broaden into the full sunlight of the
celestial abode, and a land of love was opening for the lonely heart.
“Phœbe, it is I, your friend, Miss Lane. Can you not speak to me?”
The heavy lids were lifted, and a ray from the dimming eyes
rested upon the lady’s face, as she leaned over the miserable bed,
the tears dropping silently.
“Father,” said Phœbe again, speaking with much difficulty; and the
wretched man came nearer, so that his child’s eyes rested upon his
face. “I am going to leave you—oh, be ready to meet me; promise:”
and the solemn tones of her voice broke up the ice of wickedness
and hardness about the man’s heart, till he wept.
There was a great stillness in the room again, and it was only
broken by a low moan of pain from the dying child.
A light broke over her face, and the moaning ceased. She moved
her hand to her breast; and, lifting the sheet, Miss Lane saw lying
there, the little Prayer-book she had given her, with its faded
heliotrope between the leaves. The tears fell faster, and she kissed
the poor, wasted cheek of the girl.
And now Mr. Payne came, and the solemn sacrament began.
Kneeling round the bed of that departing soul, the broken body and
shed blood of the Lord were received by chastened spirits—while
“the peace which passeth understanding” rested in the hearts of all.
It was over, and Phœbe lay on her pillow exhausted, but with a
calm mind, and an expression of perfect joy on her face. And now
the end was very near. For one, two hours, the soul wrestled with
the body, and the pain was hard to bear: but then a calmer time
came, when she was free from pain, and before sun-setting she fell
asleep, or rather woke into light and life.
Her friend smoothed back the soft hair, closed the eyes, took the
little Prayer-book from the dead hands, gave it to the humbled father
with a silent prayer, and reverently kissing the marble brow, went
softly home through the quiet woods, feeling as if she had been
close to heaven.
At the sun-setting, its brilliant rays illuminated all the trees and
shrubs till the forests were resplendent. The sky was blue, and a few
clouds floated near the horizon, tinted with a border of gold. In the
distance, the heaven and the woods seemed to meet; the clouds,
the millions of branches sparkling with diamonds, appeared—one
might conceive—like the gates at the entrance of Paradise, and
shining upon them was the splendor of the sun behind.
A soul had entered into rest, and God’s world, held in his hand,
was made all beautiful by the reflection of his glory. Suddenly,
darkness came, and the wonderful beauty faded away.
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