In France the backs of the cards are highly glazed and are of a plain, uniform colour, generally red or green. In Spain card makers use speckled backs. The modern Tarots have designs engraved on a very thin paper that is pasted on the back, the edges of which are turned over the face of the card, making a narrow border. These designs are sometimes "the woman of Samaria," and at others a Hercules throwing rocks down a precipice. The backs of old English cards were generally plain, and when paper was scarce or expensive, old cards were too useful to be destroyed, and were used for various purposes; hence we find them in the bindings of old books. Sometimes they were cut up for paper dolls. The richly dressed figures of the court cards were ingeniously put to this purpose, while a skillful cutter could with a pair of scissors fashion sleds, chairs, tables, etc., from the pip cards. In "Henry Esmond," Thackeray mentions that an invitation was sent on a Ten of Diamonds, and this was a common practice in America before the Revolution. There are several cards preserved in different families on which invitations have been written or printed. One of them is as follows: "Sir Jeffery Amhurst's compliments to Mrs. Paul Miller, and desires the Favour of her Company to a Ball at the New Assembly Rooms on Saturday the 23d inst., being the Anniversary of St. George. Head Quarters April 18th, 1763, New York." In the days of Charles I and the Commonwealth, there was a Sir John Northcote, ancestor of the present peer, who took the Parliamentary side against the king. His father was Justice Northcote, who at a game of cards won an estate in Devonshire from a Mr. Dowrish. The game played was Piquet, and to commemorate this transaction, the hands held by the players were afterwards inlaid upon the table they used, that is still preserved by the family. CHAPTER XI POINT CARDS WITH FRENCH PIPS When Mercury's emblems were discarded by the French, some four hundred years since, to be replaced by local designs, it was but natural that the points should be accorded original and appropriate significances at their birthplace, as well as in the alien countries where these new pips were adopted. Names were suggested by the shape or usage of the device in different games or under noteworthy occasions. Thus, the Pique of the French (the shape of which was derived from the outline of the _hallebarde_ of the soldiers who were on guard about their king) received from the English the name of Spade, and for this several derivations have been given. One of them is that the shape resembled that of the shovel or spade common among miners, but the more probable origin is the one that is suggested from the Tarot pip called by the Spaniards Espadas, the name of which was transferred to the new emblem, which is a suggestion that the Tarot cards were not unknown in England before the arrival of the French pack, although no cards of this period have been found in England.