A sleeved blanket,
made with a hood which lay back on his shoulders, almost covered him,
and was girdled at the waist by a knotted cord.
"Here I am again, Father Baby," hailed the rider, alighting.
"Welcome home, doctor. What news from Fort Chartres?"
"No news. My friend the surgeon is doing well. He need not have sent for
me; but your carving doctor is a great coward when it comes to
physicking himself."
They entered the shop, while the slave led the horse away; and no
customers demanding the trading friar's attention, he followed his
lodger to an inner room, having first lighted candles in his wooden
sconces. Their yellow lustre showed the tidiness of the shop, and the
penny merchandise arranged on shelves with that exactness which has been
thought peculiar to unmarried women. Father Baby was a scandal to the
established confessor of the parish, and the joke of the ungodly. Some
said he had been a dancing-master before he entered the cloister, and it
was no wonder he turned out a renegade and took to trading.
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