He was thus able to take his mother quietly into the parlor, and then prepare his wife for the interview.

She had fortunately drunk but little at that early hour, and she was less sullen and capricious than usual.
He returned to his mother with his mind tolerably at ease.

His wife soon followed him into the parlor, and the meeting between her and Mrs.
Scatchard passed off better than he had ventured to anticipate, though he observed with secret apprehension that his mother, resolutely as she controlled herself in other respects, could not look his wife in the face when she spoke to her.

It was a relief to him, therefore, when Rebecca began to lay the cloth.
She laid the cloth, brought in the bread-tray, and cut a slice from the loaf for her husband, then returned to the kitchen.

At that moment, Isaac, still anxiously watching his mother, was startled by seeing the same ghastly change pass over her face which had altered it so awfully on the morning when Rebecca and she first met.