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The encounter with the carriages having sprung upon Winterborne's hts by a natural channel went froes and other houses in the two

Hintocks, now his oould fall into her possession in the event of

South's death Heabout

in the past to invent such precarious tenures as these; still more,

what could have induced his ancestors at Hintock, and other village

people, to exchange their old copyholds for life-leases But having

naturally succeeded to these properties through his father, he had done

his best to keep theligence in not insuring South's life

After breakfast, stillon the circumstances, he went upstairs,

turned over his bed, and drew out a flat canvas bag which lay between

theIn this he kept his leases, which had

remained there unopened ever since his father's death It was the

usual hiding-place a rural lifeholders for such documents

Winterborne sat down on the bed and looked them over 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

hts, in consideration