While he thus wandered in the deep woods or by the lonely lake, his only child, the beautiful Giuliana, who was born in Italy, sat, a solitary being in the forest lodge, and gazed at the charming pictures of Capri, Torrento, and Ischia, and many other lovely spots, views of which her father had brought with him from her enchanting native land, and which she in vain tried to recall to memory, for she had left it at so early an age that she retained but a very faint recollection of it, and to her its beauties were almost ideal. She did not remember her mother at all; her father could never be induced to speak of her; and from the time she first began to notice what was going on around her, she had always felt inclined to cry when other children spoke of their mothers, because she had none herself.
She was about three years of age when the Countess R. took her from Salerno on her journey home from Italy, accompanied by her father, who had attended the noble family on a previous journey; and thenceforth Giuliana had never seen her beautiful unknown native land. During the two years, over which period their travels had extended, her infantine mind had opened considerably; and of that time she preserved many reminiscences. She had always been a pet of the beautiful countess, and had travelled in the inside of the carriage with her and the two young counts Otto and Wilhelm, while her father went outside with the servants, though he was by no means always their companion, for when the party arrived at inns in towns where they knew no one, it was always Jæger Franzesco who enlivened them, and amused the whole party. Giuliana well remembered how the countess and both her sons had wept when her father, ten years back, took leave of them, and carried her, then only five years of age, to the forest lodge at Soröe, while the young counts, who were then nearly grown up, accompanied their invalid and melancholy mother to some German watering-place.
From that time, no year had passed over Giuliana's head without her having received several kind and costly souvenirs--dresses, and other gifts--from the countess. She always wore, however, the simple dress of a peasant girl, not to seem peculiar or arrogant amongst her neighbours; and she looked much prettier on Sundays, in her knitted red sleeves and flowered bodice, than the smartest country girls, who, instead of appearing in their national costume, awkwardly attempted to sport what they thought fashionable attire. It was only at weddings, and on other great occasions, that she drew forth from her stores some pearls, or other precious stones, to adorn herself; and occasionally when she was alone, or on her father's or her own birthday, she could not resist the childish temptation to put on the pretty foreign garb which she knew was worn in her native country, and which, copying from her father's Italian pictures, she had amused herself by making up out of the foreign silks and other materials the bountiful countess had sent her.