"Well then," said Anthea, "everything we have wished has turned out rather horrid. I wish you would advise us. You are so old, you must be very wise."
"I was always generous from a child," said the Sand-fairy. "I've spent the whole of my waking hours in giving. But one thing I 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 on to one of the winged lions at the top of his father's great staircase; and what with his stone wings and the lion's stone wings—well it's not a very pretty story! But I believe the boy enjoyed himself very much till then."
"Tell me," said Anthea, "why don't our wishes turn into stone now? Why do they just vanish?"