Thus (as you will see with half an eye, my wise little auditors) these good old dames had fallen into a strange perplexity.
1851 June–July (date written), Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Gorgon’s Head”, in A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, published November 1851 (indicated as 1852), page 32