For a moment Tom forgot his manners, and stared.  Then, as a hot wave of colour surged into ’Possum’s face, he recovered himself, and came into the room, making a casual remark upon the lucerne crop—even as he spoke, it seemed incredible that the pink vision before him and the girl who had ploughed the ground and helped to put in the crop were the same person.  He tried to make the remark sound ordinary, but Garth interrupted him.  Garth, as his parents afterwards remarked, had small occasion for tact.