“Oh, my hair is on fire!” cried Coppertop 26 The South Wind 43 Skipper Blubberkins 53 The Four-posted Bed at Sea 60 The Chief of the Monkey Tribe 73 The East Wind 101 “Don’t talk of husbands to me,” said the Elderly Spinster Spider 125 The North Wind 142 COPPERTOP CHAPTER I. IN THE OLD FOUR-POSTED BED She sat up in the big four-poster and listened to the wind as it blew round the house. A ’possum on the roof uttered a plaintive gurgling cry, which sent a little shiver down her back, and she snuggled under the bedclothes, thankful for their cosy protection. But to-night the old bed felt less “snuggly” than usual, and she had a strange “I-wonder-what-will-happen-next” feeling, which would not allow her to sleep. It was such a night as witches love, when they fly about on broomsticks, and you feel sure-as-sure there is a black cat with green, staring eyes, hiding behind the burnt log in the chimney corner. Even the old colonial house, with its new slated roof and the strange terracotta gargoyles--that Coppertop was certain-sure had moved several times since they were first put up there--shook and shuddered in the bitter south wind which blew down from the ranges. “Oh, I’m just too lonesome!” sighed Coppertop, “if the old wind won’t stop whooling round the house, I simply don’t know what I’ll do.” Celia Anagusta Sinclair--for that was her real name--was rather a lonely little girl at the best of times, as her father and mother were obliged to spend many months of the year in far-away India, and left their little ten-year-old daughter in the charge of Mrs. Grudge, the housekeeper; and it must be confessed that she and “Miss Celia” were not always the best of friends. Mrs. Grudge could not abide a nickname, and never used the term “Coppertop” by which the child was known to everyone else; she was of the old school, stern and strict, and had come out in the early days from Home. She could not understand “these colonials,” she would say, and Coppertop’s cheeks would glow and her auburn plaits would seem to grow even more coppery, for she was an Australian bred and born, and proud of it, too, and simply hated to be called one of “these colonials.” The old four-posted bed had come out from Home, too, but it had a very different spirit from that of dour Mrs. Grudge; it was old, and massive and beautiful, with richly carved legs--which, of course, Mrs. Grudge couldn’t boast of--and it seemed to whisper of old rose gardens, and ivy-clad towers, and quaint, sleepy, thatched cottages, and knights in armour, and May-day revels, and, most of all, of security and comfort.