They started off and
found the girl. She was a mulatto or octoroon as they say, and as
pretty as a red wagon. You see the stranger was pure white and from New
Orleans; but the mother of the girl was a slave and they say kind of
coffee colored. And the upshot of it was that the stranger offered this
man $2500 to marry the octoroon. What he wanted to do was to place her
well. He didn't want her to run the chance of ever being a slave, as she
might be in the South. He was her father and he naturally had a father's
feeling for her, even if she was an octoroon. And this stranger said
that he had been around town and the country for some days looking at
prospective husbands and making some inquiry, and that he had found no
one to equal this man. The man liked the octoroon, the octoroon liked
the man. And they struck a bargain. The man got his $2500; he married
the girl on the spot. The stranger disappeared, and was never seen or
heard of again. It all happened right there. The man bought land, he got
rich. He was one of the best men I ever knew, and one of my best
friends. The octoroon died in childbirth, leaving a daughter still
living and in this town. The man died recently. His name was James
Miles. He was your father. And Zoe is your half-sister, and wants to
share in the estate, and that's why I sent for you.
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