"Don't yant to go home!" whimpered the baby, whom the morning light and the presence of many small Madigans had reassured.
"He could stay and play with Frank, couldn't he, Aunt Anne?" suggested Sissy, sweetly.
Miss Madigan's look spoke volumes.
"Yes, yes," cried Fauntleroy. "Don't yant to go home!"
His papa would be lonesome, Miss Madigan told him, archly; and his mama would be lonesome, and Bombey—
"Don't yant to go home!" wept the baby.
"There! There!... Take him, Frank, into my room and amuse him—anything, only don't let him cry!" exclaimed Miss Madigan. "I'm going into Kate's room to lie down. I'm exhausted and—"
"Did Fauntleroy disturb you, Aunt Anne?" asked Kate, sympathetically.
But Miss Madigan hurried away. She was so unnerved she feared that she might weep. But, after nearly half an hour's trying, she found she was too tired to sleep, after all, and rising wearily, she went back to her room for the book she had been reading.
The sight that met her eyes, as she opened the door, completed her undoing. There was Fauntleroy, with an uncomprehending grin on his cherubic face, pinching each separate leaf of her cherished sensitive-plant. Evidently the borrowed baby did not exactly understand the desperately funny quality of the act, but he knew it must be the funniest thing in the world, for the Madigans were writhing grotesquely in the unbounded merriment it caused.