collect

They would sit in circles on the hall of the king’s council chamber, and scratch for fleas and pretend to be men; or they would run in and out of the roofless houses and collect pieces of plaster and old bricks in a corner, and forget where they had hidden them, and fight and cry in scuffling crowds, and then break off to play up and down the terraces of the king’s garden, where they would shake the rose trees and the oranges in sport to see the fruit and flowers fall.

“From all that I can collect by your manner of talking, you must be two of the silliest girls in the country.

I stood for a minute or two to collect myself, for I was dazed with the horror of the thing.

Maybe you collect yourself, sir.