It was this love of nature's beauties, and a yearning for the pure hallowed feelings which those beauties had been wont to call up from their hidden springs in the depths of the soul, to bear away upon their swelling tide the corruption which had gathered, and I feared might settle there,--it was this love, and longing, and fear, which made my heart throb quickly, as I sent forth a momentary glance from the factory window. I think I said there was a cloudless sky; but it was not so. It was clear, and soft, and its beauteous hue was of "the hyacinth's deep blue"--but there was one bright solitary cloud, far up in the cerulean vault; and I wished that it might for once be in my power to lie down upon that white, fleecy couch, and there, away and alone, to dream of all things holy, calm, and beautiful. Methought that better feelings, and clearer thoughts than are often wont to visit me, would there take undisturbed possession of my soul. And might I not be there, and send my unobstructed glance into the depths of ether above me, and forget for a little while that I had ever been a foolish, wayward, guilty child of earth? Could I not then cast aside the burden of error and sin which must ever depress me here, and with the maturity of womanhood, feel also the innocence of infancy? And with that sense of purity and perfection, there would necessarily be mingled a feeling of sweet uncloying bliss--such as imagination may conceive, but which seldom pervades and sanctifies the earthly heart. Might I not look down from my aerial position, and view this little world, and its hills, valleys, plains, and streamlets, and its thousands of busy inhabitants, and see how puerile and unsatisfactory it would look to one so totally disconnected from it? Yes, there, upon that soft snowy cloud could I sit, and gaze upon my native earth, and feel how empty and "vain are all things here below." But not motionless would I stay upon that aerial couch. I would call upon the breezes to waft me away over the broad blue ocean, and with nought but the clear bright ether above me, have nought but a boundless, sparkling, watery expanse below me. Then I would look down upon the vessels pursuing their different courses across the bright waters; and as I watched their toilsome progress, I should feel how blessed a thing it is to be where no impediment of wind or wave might obstruct my onward way.