Pardon me, dear readers, if I am have been absent from the blog. I've had such a vicious cold, I feared it might cyber-infect you...

If you are enjoying Downton Abbey on television, you might enjoy an easily readable biography of the Countess of Carnarvon and Highclere Castle at the time in the PBS blockbuster. Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle

She was one of what Edith Wharton called "the buccaneers." Rich, non-English women whose parents married them off to penniless lords of various manors. The daughter got a title, the men, a check. And everyone was happy -- with the notable exception of Consuelo Vanderbilt.

Almina, however, was not American, just the illegitimate daughter and "goddaughter" of a Rothschild and a Mrs. Wombwell. (Don't you just love that name?)

That's the new book. The "old" book on the subject is The Glitter and the Gold the autobiography of Consuelo Vanderbilt. It was thoroughly delightful, even if her marriage was not.

Her husband once famously said to her, "You're not snooty enough to be a duchess."

But it was all to come to an abrupt end with the Great War of 1914-1918, and perhaps I'll write about that next time. After all, I remember my favorite uncle fought in it and I still have a picture of him in his 'doughboy" uniform.