"Since then," continued Celestina, "for at least fifteen years she's been makin' that dress over an' over. Now she'll get a new breadth of goods or a couple of breadths, turn the others upside down or cut 'em over, an' by keepin' everlastingly at it she contrives to look like the pictures in the papers most of the time. It's maddenin' to the rest of us. Abbie Brewster knows Minnie well an' somewhere in a book she's got set down the gyrations of that dress. I wouldn't be bothered recordin' it but Abbie always was a methodical soul. She could give you the date of every inch of satin in the whole thing. Just now there's 1914 sleeves; the front breadths are 1918; the back ones 1911. Most of the waist is January, 1912, with a June, 1913, vest. Half the girdle is made out of 1910 satin, an' half out of 1919. Of course there's lights when the blacks don't all look the same; still, unless you got close up you wouldn't notice it, an' Minnie Coffin keeps on settin' the styles for the town like she always has." The narrator paused for breath. "She's makin' it over again right now," she announced, rising from her chair and moving toward the pantry. "You can always tell when she is 'cause she pulls down all her front curtains an' won't come to the door when folks knock. The shades was down when Abbie an' me drove by there last week an' to make sure Abbie got out an' tapped to' see if anybody'd come to let us in, but nobody did. We said then: '_Minnie's resurrectin' the black satin_.' You mark my words she'll be in church in it Sunday. It generally takes her about ten days to get it done. I was expectin' she'd give it another overhauling, for she ain't done nothin' to it for three months at least an' the styles have changed quite a little in that time. Sometimes I tell Willie I believe we'll live to see her laid out in that dress yet." "You can bet Bart would draw a sigh of relief if we did," chimed in the inventor. "Why, the money that woman's spent pullin' that durn thing to pieces an' puttin' it together again is a caution. Bart said you'd be dumbfounded if you could know what he's paid out. If the coffin lid was once clamped down on the pest he'd raise a hallelujah, poor feller." "Willie!" gasped the horrified Celestina.