Unnamed Painter

The man who makes "Miss Zilphia Gant" a Missus is introduced as "a tramp painter," an itinerant whom her mother hires to repaint the dressmaking shop. His last name is never given, so we cannot know Zilphia's married name. Her husband is described as "a young man with black hair and eyes like wood ashes" (375). Despite his own prejudice against any "woman that wore glasses" (377), he falls in love with Zilphia, and vows to her to "get you out of" the miserable life her mother forces her to live (376). Like a knight, he stands several vigils over her, but though he marries her he cannot succeed in carrying her away from Mrs. Gant. Some time after he leaves Jefferson he marries again "in a neighboring state" (379), and has at least one child, but is killed by a car outside the hospital where his wife has died giving birth to a daughter (381).