een
radiance, and leaving the top of each step in shade.

The window-sill of the front room was between four and five feet from the
floor, dropping inwardly to a broad low bench, over which, as well as
over the whole surface of the wall beneath, there always hung a deep
shade, which was considered objectionable on every ground save one,
namely, that the perpetual sprinkling of seeds and water by the caged
canary above was not noticed as an eyesore by visitors. The window was
set with thickly-leaded diamond glazing, formed, especially in the lower
panes, of knotty glass of various shades of green. Nothing was better
known to Fancy than the extravagant manner in which these circular knots
or eyes distorted everything seen through them from the outside--lifting
hats from heads, shoulders from bodies; scattering the spokes of cart-
wheels, and bending the straight fir-trunks into semicircles. The
ceiling was carried by a beam traversing its midst, from the side of
which projected a large nail, used solely and constantly as a peg for
Geoffrey's hat; the nail was arched by a rainbow-shaped stain, imprinted
by the brim of the said hat when it was hung there dripping wet.

The most striking point about the room was the furniture. 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
the