e, I would not have harmed
one hair of her viperish head, as flat on top as if the stone of the
Indian had been bound upon its crown from babyhood, yet full of brains
to bursting around the base of the skull.

It was necessary for Dinah to be in constant attendance on my Argus, and
even to feed her, so helpless were her hands, with the mucilages which
now formed her principal diet, by the order of some celebrated
physician, who wrote his prescriptions without seeing his patient, after
the form of the ancients, sending them daily through the hands of Mrs.
Raymond. Still those vigilant green eyes never faltered in their task,
and lying where--with the door opened between our chambers (as she
tyrannically required it to be most of the time) she could command a
view of almost every act of my life--I found her scrutiny more
unendurable than when she had at least feigned to be absorbed with her
stocking-basket. Ernie's noise, too, disturbed her, and I was obliged to
keep him constantly amused, for fear that her wrath might culminate in
eternal banishment.

The days slid on--November had passed through that exquisite phase of
existence (which almost redeems it from the reproach cast upon it
through all time, of being _par excellence the_ gloomy month of the
year), the sweet and balmy influences of which had reached us, even
through the walls of our prison-house, in the shape of smoky sunshine,
and balmy, odorous, and lingering blossoms, and was now asserting its
traditional character with much angry bluster of sleet, and storm, and
cutting wind. It was Herod lamenting his Marianne slain by his own hand,
and making others suffer the consequences of his regretted cruelty, his
remorseful anguish. It was the fierce Viking making wild wail over his
dead Oriana.

No more to come until another year had done its work of resurrection and
decay, the lovely Indian Summer slumbered under her mound of withered
flowers and heaps of gorgeous leaves, unheeding all, or unconscious of
the grief of her stern bridegroom.

Cold and bitter and bleak howled the November blast, and ruthlessly
drove the fleet against the shivering panes, exposed without, though
shielded within by Venetian folding shutters, on that gray morning, when
a passing whisper from most unlovely and altogether unfaithful lips
nerved me paradoxically to sudden resolution.

False as I knew old Dinah to be--almost on principle--still, I could not
disregard the possible truth