The ground or mesh (_réseau_) is usually hexagonal, and is worked together with the pattern in the Valenciennes, Mechlin, and Buckingham laces, but in the Brussels and Honiton the ground is worked in afterwards, or the pattern is sewn on. Other fancy grounds or “fillings” are called “modes” or “brides,” which consist of little ties ornamented with “picots” or small loops (see Figs. 280, 284). A more elaborate form of fillings may be seen in the Brussels and Alençon lappets (Figs. 278, 279); in the latter may be seen lozenges and flat hexagons of a solid character set in frames of hexagons and on the intersections of the squares. This groundwork has been termed _réseau-rosacé_. [Illustration: Fig. 277.—A, Brussels ground; B, Two-thread Mesh; D, Woven Ground.] The outline around the pattern in some laces is called the “cordonnet”; it is an important feature of the Alençon point lace (Fig. 279), where it consists of a horsehair overcast with a button-hole stitch of thread; it is also a distinctive mark of the pillow-made Mechlin lace (Fig. 283), but never occurs in the true or _vraie_ Valenciennes. [Illustration: Fig. 278.—Lappet; Brussels; Eighteenth Century.] The oldest of white hand-made laces is the Italian needle-point variety, which is a development of embroidery. It is difficult to give the exact date of the invention of needle-point lace, for in the earliest specimens of Italian work, in which the patterns are copied from the geometric designs of the Venetian pattern-books, they are usually a mixture of needle-point and of plaited and twisted work, but the latter may have been done with a hooked needle, and not pillow-made. On the other hand, before point lace was so universally made by the Venetians, the pattern-books were published about the middle of the sixteenth century for _merletti a piombini_, or “lace made with leaden bobbins”—probably a species of pillow-made lace—and some Italian work of this kind is still in existence that is quite as early in date as that of the oldest needlepoint variety. This would prove that there was little or no difference in the age of either invention, although perhaps priority ought to be given to the needle-point variety. [Illustration: Fig. 279.—Lappet; Point d’Alençon; Eighteenth Century.] Guipure is a name that has been given to lace in which the flowers are united with ties or “brides picotees” (Fig. 280), but the term guipure is more properly a kind of filigree work made with stiffened cords like gimp or wire, the pattern being formed of gimp bent into a flattened design by the needle, and united where the forms touch each other (Fig. 281). The patterns in the early laces were, as we have seen, purely geometric forms, such as squares with circles enclosed, divided by radiating lines and diagonals, rosettes, lozenges, and small trimming borders of rectangular panels, all worked on foundation lines that resembled in some degree the main lines of a spider’s web.