He was down the mountain now and in a patch of scrubby timber; but whether the same he had gone through on the preceding day or not he could not tell. As the morning light became stronger and clearer, he discovered a small hut or cabin--deserted and partly ruined. To this he wearily made his way, and sunk exhausted and senseless on the floor. And the sun came out bright and warm, and all nature gloried in its rays. Birds sung, insects hummed and chirped, and all things animate and inanimate seemed to rejoice in the coming of spring--as if storms were not. CHAPTER II. A MOUNTAIN MAIDEN. Lester Conway, physician in ordinary to the inhabitants of ---- County, Pennsylvania, was placidly jogging along the mountain road, on his regular round among his patients. He was a young man yet was Lester Conway. He was a successful one--a strong, self-reliant man, and a talented man withal. One need only look at his massive brow and well-shaped head to see that; and there was more than talent in this man’s face. There was firmness and a patient determination, that proved him likely to gain any high point he might set his heart on. But success does not always imply gain, and for all his extensive practice, Doctor Conway was far from being rich. Not that his poverty troubled him any; he had enough to get along on, and, generally speaking, was perfectly contented with his lot in life. Just at present, however, he looked a trifle doubtful, for he was pondering over a great problem, as his pony jogged along the quiet road--a problem that most of us ponder over at some period of our lives. And we solve it, too, in several ways, and generally, be it confessed, to our greater comfort and happiness; for this great problem that occupied the doctor’s mind, even to the exclusion of his practice, was the old, old, but ever new problem of love and matrimony. He could not have told even himself when he had first fallen in love with pretty Norine Bright. But that he was in love there could not be the slightest doubt. Perhaps he had never really _fallen_ in love at all. It was not like him to feel any sudden accession of passion; but ever since he had chosen Jim Bright as his one particular friend, he had felt a regard almost akin to reverence for his favorite sister. He had drifted into love, and that passion, being of slow growth, became, in course of time, part of his being. Whether he was loved in return, he did not know, for he had never dared to find out. But now he was determined to satisfy himself on that point, and hoped, when his pony jogged back over the quiet mountain road, he--the doctor, not the pony--would have solved the problem to his satisfaction. Surely it was a good omen to find Miss Norine leaning over the gate in front of the little cottage when he rode up, and surely the doctor might have derived considerable encouragement from the bright smile of welcome he received.