Keep in mind that Erskine was writing a hundred and ten years ago. There might have been unwritten "understandings" that people of his generation would have known, but which have disappeared with time.

I've heard a story about a young wife who wanted to cook roast for her new husband. Before she put the meat in the pan, she cut the end off of it and placed it in the pan with the rest of the cut. The husband asked her why, and she said, "That's how my mother does it." He asked the mother-in-law, and she said, "That's how my mother does it." He asked the grandmother-in-law, and she said, "I never had a pan long enough to cook a whole roast." In other words, there might have been a reason for abstaining from wearing red at one time, but no one remembers it now.