Amos had formed a mighty purpose; it was to be the one object of his earthly life, to which everything was to bend till he had accomplished it.  But who would have thought of such an iron resolution of will in a breast like that poor boy's?  For to him an ordinary conversation was a trial, and to speak in company an effort, though it was but to answer a simple question.  If a stranger asked his opinion, a nervous blush covered his face as he forced out a reply.  The solitude which others found irksome had special charms for him.  With one person only in his own home did he feel really at ease,--that person was his aunt, for he believed that she in a measure really understood and sympathised with him.  And yet that shy, nervous, retiring young man, down-trodden and repulsed as he was, was possessed by one grand and all-absorbing purpose: it was this, to bring back his sister to her father's home forgiven, and his mother to that same home with the cloud removed from her mind and spirit.