"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.