They were ordinary leases for three lives, which a member of the South family, some fifty years before this time, had accepted of the lord of the manor in lieu of certain copyholds and other rights, in consideration of having the dilapidated houses rebuilt by said lord.

They had come into his father's possession chiefly through his mother, who was a South.
Pinned to the parchment of one of the indentures was a letter, which Winterborne had never seen before.

It bore a remote date, the handwriting being that of some solicitor or agent, and the signature the landholder's.

It was to the effect that at any time before the last of the stated lives should drop, Mr.Giles Winterborne, senior, or his representative, should have the privilege of adding his own and his son's life to the life remaining on payment of a merely nominal sum; the concession being in consequence of the elder Winterborne's consent to demolish one of the houses and relinquish its site, which stood at an awkward corner of the lane and impeded the way.
The house had been pulled down years before.

Why Giles's father had not taken advantage of his privilege to insert his own and his son's lives it was impossible to say.