ly do any good. Fairies cannot change little boys' hearts;
and I must confess I never yet got any good myself from having a Fairy
ancestress, and I have no confidence in them.--Still," pursued the
good lady, as she laid her head on her pillow, "I am not able, it
appears, to convince Roderick myself; and therefore I feel, with you,
that I wish the Fairy would come and try."

"I fear it is in vain to say so now, Madeline. We have wished the poor
creature out of the way so often for the last ten years, that it is
not very likely a single wish the other way will bring her to us."

"No, indeed," murmured the Fairy Eudora, who at that moment was
standing on the shore of the Fairy Island; "you are a pretty pair, you
two, to think of such a thing! I begged to be allowed to come about
the place years ago, and you didn't refuse; but you always kept me
away by _wishing_ I mightn't come; and now, because you are puzzled to
know what to do with your silly child, you want me with you for the
first time these ten years! Oh, you selfish people, don't fancy I'll
come near you!" And the justly angry Fairy stamped her foot in
indignation, and retired into private apartments in the palace.

Do not be surprised at what you have just heard, my dear children; for
though you may have never thought about the power and importance of
_wishes_, there is, I assure you, a great deal of both one and the
other belonging to them. Some people talk, indeed, of "mere wishes,"
as if they were trifles light as air; but it is not so. To prove this,
first think what importance is attached to them in the Scriptures.
Wishes are a sort of porch or doorway to actions. In the Tenth
Commandment we are forbidden to _wish_ for what belongs to our
neighbour;--for who is so likely to break the Eighth Commandment, and
steal, as the man who breaks the Tenth, and wishes for any thing that
is not his?

And so, all the evil in the world begins by _wishing_ something wrong;
and if you can cure yourself of wishing wrongly, you will very seldom
_do_ wrong.

Now you see, I am sure, how important wishes are for evil; but they
are equally strong for good. For, if you wish well to any one, you
have opened the first door to doing him a kindness. And if you
heartily wish to be good, you have opened the first gate on the road
of becoming so. Of course, wishes will not do every thing; but they do
a great deal.

And there is another thing. They never fall to the ground unnoticed