James Grant was a journeymen carpenter who did not always pay his bills and who owed Maria three dollars.
Both Maria and Martin drank the sour new wine on empty stomachs, and it went swiftly to their heads.

Utterly differentiated creatures that they were, they were lonely in their misery, and though the misery was tacitly ignored, it was the bond that drew them together.

Maria was amazed to learn that he had been in the Azores, where she had lived until she was eleven.

She was doubly amazed that he had been in the Hawaiian Islands, whither she had migrated from the Azores with her people.

But her amazement passed all bounds when he told her he had been on Maui, the particular island whereon she had attained womanhood and married.
Kahului, where she had first met her husband,--he, Martin, had been there twice! Yes, she remembered the sugar steamers, and he had been on them--well, well, it was a small world.