ow I shall not starve here, and I am too afraid
to go on the road again. I shall not let them know that I am here unless
some piece of luck comes my way."

"Didn't your relatives ever try to find out about you?" asked M.
Vulfran.

"No, never," replied Perrine.

"Well, then, perhaps you are right," he said. "Yet if you don't like to
take a chance and go and see them, why don't you write them a letter?
They may not be able to give you a home, so then you could stay here
where you'd be sure of earning your living. On the other hand, they may
be very glad to have you, and you would have love and protection, which
you would not have here. You've learned already that life is very hard
for a young girl of your age, and in your position ... and very sad."

"Yes, sir; I know it is very sad," said little Perrine, lifting her
beautiful eyes to the sightless eyes of her grandfather. "Every day I
think how sad it is, and I know if they would hold out their arms to
welcome me I would run into them so quickly! But suppose they were just
as cold and hard to me as they were with my father...."

"Had these relations any serious cause to be angry with your father? Did
he do anything very bad?"

"I cannot think," said little Perrine, "that my father, who was always so
good and kind, and who loved me and mother so much, could have ever been
bad. He could not have done anything very wrong, and yet his people must
have had, in their opinion, serious reasons for being angry with him, it
seems to me."

"Yes, evidently," said the blind man. "But what they have against him
they could not hold against you. The sins of the father should not fall
upon the children."

"If that could be true!"

She said these words in a voice that trembled so with emotion that the
blind man was surprised at the depths of this little girl's feelings.

"You see," he said, "how in the depths of your heart how much you want
their love and affection."

"Yes, but how I dread being turned away," she replied.

"But why should you be?" he asked. "Have your grandparents any other
children beside your father?"

"No."

"Why shouldn't they be glad that you should come and take the place of
the son they have lost? You don't know what it is to be alone in the
world."

"Yes, I do ... I know only too well what it is," replied Perrine.

"Youth who has a future ahead is not like old age, which has nothing
before it but Death."

She looked at him. She did not take