Elizabeth talked with Sir James of the different costumes of different countries. She told him she had dresses of many sorts; and she appeared in a new one every day during his continuance at Court. Sometimes she dressed after the English, sometimes after the French, and sometimes after the Italian fashion. She asked Sir James which he thought became her best. He said the Italian, "whilk pleasit her weel; for she delighted to show her golden coloured hair, wearing a kell and bonnet as they do in Italy. Her hair was redder than yellow, and apparently of nature." Elizabeth herself seems to have been quite contented with its hue, for she very complacently asked Sir James, whether she or Mary had the finer hair? Sir James having replied as politely as possible, she proceeded to inquire which he considered the more beautiful? The ambassador quaintly answered, that the beauty of either was not her worst fault. This evasion would not serve; though Melville, for many sufficient reasons, was unwilling to say any thing more definite. He told her that she was the fairest queen in England, and Mary the fairest in Scotland. Still this was not enough. Sir James ventured, therefore, one step farther. "They were baith," he said, "the fairest ladies of their courts, and that the Queen of England was whiter, but our Queen was very lusome." Elizabeth next asked which of them was of highest stature? Sir James told her the Queen of Scots. "Then she said the Queen was over heigh, and that herself was neither over heigh nor over laigh. Then she askit what kind of exercises she used. I said, that as I was dispatchit out of Scotland, the Queen was but new come back from the Highland hunting; and that when she had leisure frae the affairs of her country, she read upon guid buiks the histories of divers countries; and sometimes would play upon the lute and virginals. She spearit gin she played weel; I said, raisonably for a Queen."