The Octoroon

The last notes of a favorite waltz resounded through the splendid saloons of Mrs. Montresor's mansion in Grosvenor Square; sparkling eyes and glittering jewels flashed in the la...

"At last!" exclaimed Adelaide; "so you have actually condescended to honor my aunt's assembly with your gracious presence, my dear cousin. Perhaps you were in hopes you would no...

Cora's father, Gerald Leslie, was the owner of a fine estate upon the banks of a lake about two miles out of New Orleans, and also of a handsome house in that city. It is at thi...

While the difficulties of the planter were becoming every day more painful to encounter, and more perilous to his future prospects of happiness, the good ship Virginia reached h...

Let us turn from the residence of Cora's father to the splendid mansion inhabited by the wealthy young planter, Augustus Horton, in one of the best streets of New Orleans.

Twenty years before the period of which we are writing, a certain wealthy Spaniard, calling himself Juan Moraquitos, came to New Orleans and took up his abode in a superb villa...

The young creole, generous-hearted as she was, had never felt the same affection for her old school-fellow since the fatal revelation made by Silas Craig. It was in vain that th...

Thick shrubberies of magnolia and arbutus, intersected by winding pathways, and varied by rockeries, lay between the terrace and the limpid waters below. Tall palms spread their...

Neither Cora nor Toby was aware that there had been a listener during the latter part of their conversation; but it was not less a fact. Gerald Leslie had returned unobserved by...

Camillia and Paul Lisimon were no longer children. The young heiress had attained her nineteenth year, while Don Juan's protege was, as our readers are aware, two years her senior.

From the hour in which Augustus Horton first looked upon the noble face and form of Paul Lisimon, he entertained for the young Mexican that deadly and unrelenting hatred which j...

A dark and gloomy shadow rested upon the inky brow of the negro. For some time past the watchful eye of his mother, the old negress, Zarah, had detected her son's unhappiness, b...

It was there, and in the eyes of her so dearly loved, and of the haughty benefactor of his youth, that the young Mexican was eager to disprove the lying accusation brought again...

Upon the day following that on which the events occurred which we have described in the foregoing chapter, the Selma steamer started from New Orleans, laden with gay and fashion...

After Augustus Horton had read the paragraph in the New Orleans paper--a paragraph whose every line was calculated to wound the sensitive nature of the Octoroon--he looked towar...

While the Selma steamed proudly past the banks of the Mississippi, the inhabitants of New Orleans were occupied by the discussion of an event which had taken place on the previo...

Don Juan Moraquitos was one of the first to hear of the escape of Paul Lisimon. The reader must remember that the Spaniard knew nothing of the infamous plot devised by Silas Cra...

The plantation of Silas Craig, at Iberville, was situated, as we have already said, upon the borders of a wood; a luxuriant forest, stretching for miles upon the banks of the Mi...

The morning after the duel, Augustus Horton returned to New Orleans. Even in his jealousy of Gilbert Margrave and his guilty passion for the beautiful Octoroon, he did not aband...

As far as the eye could reach there was no vestige of any human habitation, while the rustling of the leaves and the hungry howls of the wolves only broke the silence of the night.

Let us return to New Orleans and to the Villa Moraquitos. An hour after Augustus Horton left the boudoir of Camillia, the Spanish heiress and her companion Pauline Corsi were se...

As the planter uttered the horrible threat, contained in our last chapter, every drop of blood fled from the cheeks and lips of Camillia Moraquitos, leaving them pale and colder...

It was they and they alone who listened to the wandering accents of delirium; they who soothed and comforted in the hour of suffering; they who cheered and animated when the dan...

"I am ruined, Cora," answered Gerald Leslie, in a hoarse whisper. "But come the worst, we love each other. There is no dark cloud between us now. We may be penniless, but at lea...

All things went on at the Villa Moraquitos as calmly as if nothing out of the ordinary course had happened. Camillia and her father met constantly and the Spaniard still display...

At one end of this room stood the rostrum of the auctioneer, while immediately before his desk was stretched a long table of rough deal, upon which one by one the slaves took th...

The following day was that appointed for the Spaniard's marriage with Pauline Corsi, and preparations had been made for the celebration of the ceremony with the splendor worthy...

The same moonlight which illumined the meeting of Pauline Corsi and the strangers in the streets of New Orleans, shone on the smooth bosom of the Mississippi, and on the white w...

They only reached New Orleans upon the evening after the slave auction, and when Pauline Corsi met them they were in search of an hotel where they could spend the night.

He was almost mad with fury as this thought arose to his brain. Immediately upon his arrival in New Orleans, he dispatched a messenger for his confederate and evil counselor, Si...

Paul Lisimon received the parchment from the hand of Pauline Corsi, with the bewildered manner of one who scarce knows whether he is awake or dreaming; but the entrance of the C...

Let us return to the moment at which Silas Craig received from the hands of William Bowen, his accomplice and tool, the document which he had fully believed to be destroyed.

It was impossible to keep the entire truth from Camillia. She was told that she was fatherless, but that the report which she had heard was the result of an accident. The poor g...

Gerald Leslie, William Bowen, and Philip Treverton accompanied Silas Craig to the attorney's office, where the wretched man refunded the hundred thousand dollars, and wrote a lo...