CHAPTER I I MEET SIR HENRY CURTIS It is a curious thing that at my age -- fifty-five last birthday -- I should find myself takingtakeup a pen to try to write a history .
But I give myself credit for this : whatever has happened since , I never blamed Halsey and Gertrude for takingtakeme there .
An empty egg-basket was slung upon his arm , the nap of his hat was ruffled , a patch being quite worn away at its brim where his thumb camecomein takingtakeit off .
Early in the day Dorothea had returnedreturnfrom the infant school which she had setsetgoing in the village , and was takingtakeher usual place in the pretty sitting-room which divided the bedrooms of the sisters , bent on finishing a plan for some buildings ( a kind of work which she delighted in ) , when Celia , who had been watchingwatchher with a hesitating desire to propose something , saidsay--