The hour for tea had arrived and my company had nearly all assembled, when I heard strange voices on the stairway, and presuming them to be those of the party from the W—— Hotel, I stepped out, to go through the ceremony of introduction with them, before presenting them to the rest of my guests. I was right in my conjecture, though their appearance was such as to take me aback considerably. Mrs. Dilberry was a short, coarse, oily-looking woman, with very light, round eyes, a low, slender nose, almost hidden between a pair of puffy, red cheeks, and a plump mouth, turned down at the corners. Though it was a warm summer evening, she was dressed in a heavy reddish brown silk, with a cape of the same. The remainder of her costume was a fine, though out-of-fashion French-work collar, a cap of coarsely-figured net, trimmed with thick cotton lace, intermixed with a quantity of common, deep-pink artificial flowers, of which the green leaves looked like plain glazed paper, and a very coarse pocket-handkerchief, with which she fanned herself incessantly. Her daughters, whose names she pronounced as Easter Ann and Jane Louyza, were quite as little prepossessing. The elder, who must have been thirty, was tall, spare and sour, with a sallow complexion, and a little turned up nose, quite out of proportion with her long upper lip, and the general dimensions of her face. The other, who looked ten years younger, was a youthful likeness of the mother, short, fat, and florid. From her manner it was apparent that she set up for a beauty. They both had on summer dresses—that of Miss Esther Ann having straight, perpendicular stripes, which made her look still taller, while the dumpiness of the sister seemed to be increased by one of a horizontal or run-round pattern; and they both wore clumsy, high-colored head trimmings, which had been somewhat in vogue the winter of the preceding year. “Dear me!” exclaimed the old lady, wiping her face with her handkerchief, “I am so flustered and fagged out!” “We had such a time hunting up a cap for maw,” rejoined Miss Jane Louisa. “Not that she did not bring plenty along,” corrected Miss Esther Ann, “but we thought that, as it was likely she would go out a great deal, she ought to have one of the newest fashion for evening dress.” But the tea-trays were going into the drawing-room, and I hurried my trio after them. Whilst I was providing them with seats and introducing them to their neighbors, I heard on different sides of me a strange, burring, ticking sound, for which I could not account, and which, I perceived, attracted the attention of others beside myself. During the course of the evening I discovered its cause. Each of the three had at her side a large gold repeater, which, having all been set by the same time, had simultaneously struck eight.