"Girls, what do you say to going down to the Regatta?" "The Regatta," says I, "what is that--anything cool?" "Why, it is a race given by the Yacht Club," says he, "and of course it will be cool if we go out to sea." "Well, I don't object to seeing, if that will make things cool," says I; "but how a club can race, except when it is in a policeman's hand, I can't begin to make out." Cousin D. gave one of his long, hearty laughs, and says he: "Now, really, Phœmie, don't you understand what a club is?" I felt the blood rise up into my face. "Don't I know what a club is?" says I. "Well, I should rather think so. There are hickory clubs, oak clubs, yellow pine knots, that answer pretty well, and locust clubs, but how a little ship can be turned into a club beats me!" "Oh, it isn't one ship that makes the club, but a good many," says he, "crack ships, too." I just dropped the two hands I had been holding up, quite out of breath. "So a good many ships make one club, do they?" says I. "Just so," says he. "When a lot of men join together for any particular thing, it is called a 'club.' There is the Jockey Club, the Union Club, the Rural Club, the Union League Club, the Yacht Club." "Oh, for mercy's sake, do stop before you club me to death," says I, clapping both hands to my ears. "We have got timber enough in Vermont, but clubs of any kind are not in our line. Just tell me what you want of us, and we'll say Yes or No." "Well, I want you to get into my new yacht, and go a little way out to sea," says he. "To see what?" says I. "The Regatta." "Can't you for once speak honest English?" says I. "Well, a Yacht Race," says he. "That is, little ships running races," says I; "but where?" "On the Atlantic Ocean," says he. My spirit rose. I have seen the East River and the upper bay, and more than once have caught a view of the Long Island Sound from the car-windows, but a live ocean--a great, broad, heaving ocean, with waves roaring up thirty feet high, is an object we do not often get a chance to contemplate on the slopes of the Green Mountains. Would I go and see that? Wouldn't I?" "Then you will go?" says Cousin Dempster. "Go!" says I, "yes, if I have to walk afoot with snow-shoes on." "Well, then, get your yachting clothes ready," says he. "Pink silk?" I suggested. "Oh, no; something that can stand the water," says he. "Say black alpaca, with a white hat and plumes--principle and patriotism before anything else," says I. "That will be lovely on the blue waves," says Cousin E. E. "I will wear a blue feather, and Cecilia shall turn up her Leghorn flat with an anchor." "That's just the thing," says Cousin D., with maritime enthusiasm. "I have had the yacht painted white, and on her long white pennant you will find a name all Vermonters love particularly, and the world generally." "What is her name?" we all said right out at once. "The Vermonter," says he, straightening himself up proudly.