“But isn’t it because she sleeps in the daytime that she cannot sleep at night?” asked Laura, thoughtfully.
“Great heavens! she can’t sleep in the daytime with you girls yelling like fiends right next door,” cried the Colonel, going back to the subject of his exasperation.
“Now, Colonel! we don’t yell like fiends,” declared Laura, in a little heat herself. “You know we don’t. And we are only there after half past three and until half past five—and sometimes from seven o’clock until dark. And so far the athletic field has been open but four afternoons a week.”
“By Jove, though! You make yourselves a nuisance when you are there,” declared the Colonel.
“We don’t mean to, I can assure you. And if your daughter cannot sleep save during the hours when we can go to the field, I believe the girls would all be willing to make concessions of their time. You surely mean that Mrs. Kerrick is suffering from insomnia?”
“I should say she was,” sighed the Colonel. “The last time we had a thunderstorm was—when?”
“Why, we have scarcely any this season. You know for weeks not a drop of rain has fallen. Our lawn is suffering.”
“Mine, too,” grunted the Colonel. “But that isn’t the point. The last night’s sleep she had was when we had that thunderstorm. The doctor told us she would sleep better if she removed her bed to the top floor so that she could hear the patter of rain on the roof. She has a big room at the back of the house and not only is the roof right over her head, but the tin roof of the extension is right under her windows. But, since she moved up there, there hasn’t been a shower, either day or night! And no prospect of one, so the papers say—what’s the matter with you?”
For Laura showed that she was startled and she looked up into his face very earnestly. “Oh, Colonel Swayne!” she murmured.
“What’s the matter now?” he demanded.