While this ambassador was at court Queen Elizabeth appeared in a different costume each day, and was pleased when he said that he preferred the Italian style for her because it displayed her yellow curls to advantage.
She asked him which was the more beautiful, she or Mary Stuart.
"You are the handsomest queen in England," he replied, "and ours the handsomest queen in Scotland."
"Which of us is the taller?" asked Elizabeth.
"Our queen," said Melville.
"Then she is over-tall," returned Elizabeth; "for I am neither too tall nor too short."
She next asked how Queen Mary passed her time.
"When I left Scotland, she had just come from a Highland hunt," answered the ambassador; "but when she has leisure, she reads, and sometimes plays on the lute and the virginals."
"Does she play well?" asked Elizabeth.
"Reasonably well for a queen," was the reply. Elizabeth had a love for flattery that could never be satisfied; the most fulsome compliments were always acceptable, and those who desired favors at her hands knew the importance of tickling her vanity. It made her unhappy to suspect that any one could think Mary Stuart, of all women, in any particular superior to herself. So on the evening after the interview with Lord Melville she managed to perform on the virginals, when she knew that he was within hearing. It had the desired effect; for the ambassador raised the drawing-room curtains to see who the player was, and delighted the heart of Elizabeth by assuring her that she was a much better musician than his queen.