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 ELIZABETH. 409 day thereafter so long as I was there, she changed. One day she had the English weed, another the French, and an- other the Italian, and so forth. She asked me which of them became her best? I answered, in my judgment, the Italian dress ; which answer I found pleased her well ; for she delighted to show her golden colored hair, wearing a caul and bonnet as they do in Italy. Her hair was more reddish than yellow, and curled in appearance naturally. She desired to know of me what colored hair was reputed ' best ? and whether my queen's hair or hers was best? and which of them two was fairest? I answered the fairness of them both was not their worst faults. But she was earnest with me to declare which of them both was fairest? I said, that she was the fairest queen in England, and mine in Scotland. Yet she appeared in earnest ; I answered that they were both the fairest ladies in their countries; that her majesty was whiter, but my queen was very lovely. She inquired, which of them was of higher stature ? I said, my queen. Then, said she, she is too high ; for I, myself, am neither too high nor too low." Having learned from Melville that his mistress sometimes recreated herself by playing on the harpsichord an instrument on which she herself excelled, she gave orders to Lord Huns- den that he should lead the ambassador, as it were casually, into an adjoining room, where he might overhear her per- form. When Melville, as if ravished with the hannony, broke into the queen's chamber, she pretendel to be displeased with his intrusion ; but soon, affecting to be appeased, demanded of him whether she or Mary best performed on that instru- ment ? On another opportunity she was equally ridiculous before the ambassadors of Holland. The incident is thus related by Du Maurier : "Prince Maurice, being one day in a pleasant humor, told my father that Queen Elizabeth was, as the rest of her sex, so weak as to love to be thought handsome : that the States, having sent to her a famous embassy, composed of the most considerable men, and, among others, a great many young gentlemen ; one of them having, at the first audience, stead- fastly stared at the queen, turned to an Englishman whom he had known in Holland, and said, that he could not conceive why people spoke so slightingly of the queen's beauty; that