the hour of twelve
This was a repetition upon inanimate objects of the old principle introduced by Noah , consisting for the most part of two articles of every sort . The duplicate system of furnishing owed its existence to the forethought of Fancy 's mother , exercised from the date of Fancy 's birthday onwards . The arrangement spoke for itself : nobody who knew the tone of the household could look at the goods without being aware that the second set was a provision for Fancy , when she should marry and have a house of her own . The most noticeable instance was a pair of green-faced eight-day clocks , ticking alternately , which were severally two and half minutes and three minutes striking the hour of twelve , one proclaiming , in Italian flourishes , Thomas Wood as the name of its maker , and the other -- arched at the top , and altogether of more cynical appearance -- that of Ezekiel Saunders . They were two departed clockmakers of Casterbridge , whose desperate rivalry throughout their lives was nowhere more emphatically perpetuated than here at Geoffrey 's . These chief specimens of the marriage provision were supported on the right by a couple of kitchen dressers , each fitted complete with their cups , dishes , and plates , in their turn followed by two dumb-waiters , two family Bibles , two warming - pans , and two intermixed sets of chairs . But the position last reached -- the chimney-corner -- was , after all , the most attractive side of the parallelogram .