"Poor Eunice never had much management," Maria was wont to say, smoothing down, as she spoke, the folds of her own gown.
She never wore out anything; she moved carefully and sat carefully; she did a good deal of fancy-work, but she was always very particular, even when engaged in the daintiest toil, to cover her gown with an apron, and she always held her thin-veined hands high.
She charged this upon her niece Maria when she had her new black clothes.

"Now, Maria," said she, "there is one thing I want you to remember, here is nothin'-- " (Aunt Maria elided her final "g" like most New-Englanders, although she was not deficient in education, and even prided herself upon her reading.) "Black is the worst thing in the world to grow shiny.

Folks can talk all they want to about black bein' durable.

It isn't.

It grows shiny.