Shortly before her death, the narrator (Isabella Stewart Gardner) reflects on the pride she feels in the artistic collection she has amassed.

The novel opens in the spring of 1861 in Boston. Isabella is newly married to Jack Gardner; the wealthy couple closely monitors the construction of their future home on Beacon Street. Isabella is uneasy living in Boston since she has grown up in New York City, but she is good friends with Jack’s sister, Julia (who first introduced the couple), and Harriet Gardner (the wife of Jack’s brother, Joseph).

Isabella and Jack attend a dinner party where they mingle among Boston’s upper-class: “wealthy, elite, educated, bound by names and bland privilege” (14). Isabella is aware that many of the women dislike her. She announces her hopes that she and Jack will be able to move into their new home (152 Beacon Street) in time for her upcoming 21st birthday (April 14, 1861). During the dinner party, the hostess makes a rude comment to Isabella and hurts her feelings. Later, Isabella writes to Julia (who is traveling abroad), expressing her loneliness and fears that she will never fit into Boston society. Isabella also hopes that she will soon conceive children.