Few people besides the actual sufferers can at all conceive or appreciate the intense misery which shy and retiring characters experience when themselves or their conduct are made the subjects of open ridicule, especially in company.  Amos was peculiarly sensitive on this point; and Walter knew it, and too often ungenerously availed himself of this knowledge to wound his brother when he owed him a grudge, or was displeased or out of temper with him.  He would watch his opportunity to drag Amos forward, as it were, when he could present him to his father and his friends in a ridiculous light; and then he would clap his hands, point to his brother's flushed face, and make some taunting or sarcastic remark about his "rosy cheeks."  Poor Amos, on these occasions, tingling in every nerve, and ready almost to weep tears of vexation, would shrink into himself and retreat into another room at the earliest opportunity, followed not unfrequently by an outspoken reproach from his brother, that "he must be a regular muff if he couldn't bear a joke."  Sometimes Walter's unfeeling sallies would receive a feeble rebuke from his father; but more often Mr Huntingdon would join in the laugh, and remark to his friends that Amos had no spirit in him, and that all the wit of the family was centred in Walter. Not so Miss Huntingdon.  She fully understood the feelings of both her nephews; and, while she profoundly pitied Amos, she equally grieved at the cruel want of love and forbearance in her younger nephew towards his elder brother.