won't 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 slap on
to one of the winged lions at the top of his father's great