Mr. Ryder
Mr. Ryder is the head of the Blue Veins Society and the central character of the story. He is a middle-aged man of mixed race who has done well for himself. He has fairly conservative views on the need for mixed-race people to uphold and exhort uplift for the darker, poorer members of the race, and is sometimes derisive of those who do not live up to his standards. He has been pursued by many women, and throughout his life he has not considered marriage until he met Molly Dixon, a young woman who is also bi-racial but described as very fair-skinned. His fate is forever changed when he meets Liza Jane, the wife of his youth, and he is faced with the decision of embracing his past or future, his blackness or his whiteness, himself or his people.
Liza Jane
Liza Jane is an older black woman who was born as a slave. Before the Civil War, she was married to a freeborn man by the name Sam Taylor, whom she helped to escape when she learned he was to be sold into slavery. She visits the house of Mr. Ryder to ask about her husband, who has not returned for her as he promised. Mr. Ryder discourages her, but she refuses to give up her search for Sam and leaves him with the picture of her husband as a young man. At the end of her story Mr. Ryder, influenced by her fidelity and love for her husband, introduces her “as the wife of his youth.”
Molly Dixon
Molly Dixon is a beautiful, educated, well-mannered, and fairly young widow of mixed race whom Mr Ryder falls in love with. The ball, where Mr. Ryder acknowledges his former wife, is organized in Molly’s honor, and she is the first to say that the man in the story should acknowledge the wife of his youth.
Sam Taylor (Mr. Ryder)
Sam Taylor is a freeborn man of mixed race who was married to Liza Jane before the war. When he learns that he is to be sold into slavery, he escapes with the help of Liza Jane and promises to come back for her. However, he does not come back in time and when he does return, she is nowhere to be found. Liza Jane goes on looking for him for 25 years. At the end of the story it turns out that Sam Taylor is in fact Mr. Ryder.
