give--that's advice."

"You see," Anthea went on, "it's such a wonderful thing--such a
splendid, glorious chance. It's so good and kind and dear of you to give
us our wishes, and it seems such a pity it should all be wasted just
because we are too silly to know what to wish for."

Anthea had meant to say that--and she had not wanted to say it before
the others. It's one thing to say you're silly, and quite another to
say that other people are.

"Child," said the Sand-fairy sleepily, "I can only advise you to think
before you speak"--

"But I thought you never gave advice."

"That piece doesn't count," it said. "You'll never take it! Besides,
it's not original. It's in all the copy-books."

"But won't you just say if you think wings would be a silly wish?"

"Wings?" it said. "I should think you might do worse. Only, take care
you aren't flying high at sunset. There was a little Ninevite boy I
heard of once. He was one of King Sennacherib's sons, and a traveller
brought him a Psammead. He used to keep it in a box of sand on the
palace terrace. It was a dreadful degradation for one of us, of course;
still the boy _was_ the Assyrian King's son. And one day he wished for
wings and got them. But he forgot that they would turn into stone at
sunset, and when they did he fell on to one of the winged lions at the
top of his father's great staircase; and what with _his_ stone wings