ns heard
Fauntleroy's frightened scream, and chuckled like the depraved young
things they were. But when Francis Madigan got up and, candle in hand,
his queer nightcap tumbling over his left eye, and his gaunt shadow
covering the wall and wavering over the ceiling, came to demand of Miss
Madigan what in thousand devils was the matter, the borrowed baby was
thrown into convulsions; while Don, the big Newfoundland, awakened by
the din, burst into hoarse barks that the mountains echoed and reechoed.
After this it seemed best to Aunt Anne to sit up in bed for the rest of
the night, making shadow-pictures on the wall for Fauntleroy.

Miss Madigan's high color had faded the next morning. Accustomed to
unbroken sleep, she had not rested half an hour the whole night. It
seemed that Fauntleroy Forrest was in the habit of lying across his bed
instead of along it, and he had so terrorized the poor lady that she had
not dared to move him, when he did fall asleep toward morning and she
felt his toes digging into her ribs, lest he wake.

"Hurry with your breakfast, Sissy," she said faintly, sipping her tea,
"so that you can take him home before school."

"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 b