From the point of view of presentation the text is the 3^rd person narrative.

The characters we meet in the story under analysis are a young man Trysdale who is the main character, the girl who loved him and her brother and Trysdale’s friend. The author reveals Trysdale by means of direct and indirect characterisation. A lot of stylistic devices mentioned above are used to describe the main character. He is obviously narcissistic, vain and conceited man, who lost his happiness because of these vices. O. Henry reveals the girl by means of direct and indirect characterisation as well. She had “convincing beauty – the careless wave of her hair, the tenderness and virginal charm of her looks and words”, “how glad, how shy, how tremulous she was”. So, we can say that she was beautiful and coy, but naive. She just fell in love with a person who probably wasn’t worth her. There is a very accurate simile “she fluttered like a snared bird” as “she had always insisted upon placing him upon a pedestal”, although “he had absorbed the oblation as a desert drinks the rain that can coax from it no promise of blossom or fruit”. The author reveals the third character through indirect characterisation. According to his dialogue we can say that he was not very clever, as he tried to ease his conscience with brandy. But he was probably a good brother as he felt pity for his sister who got married with a man she didn’t love.