Chapters 1 through 3 Summary

As the story opens, Jacky Faber is arriving at port at Gravesend aboard the ship named the Dolphin. She's about "twenty-five miles east of the big city," meaning London. Jacky notes that it's 1804 and that she believes she is fifteen years old. She plans to immediately find Jaimy, a young man she's fallen in love with, in London, but finds herself putting off the meeting because she's afraid of what his reception will be. Jacky sets out with her fiddle, named the Lady Lenore, and reflects on her life prior to her arrival in London. She's spent some time in Boston at a "lady school" but notes she didn't fit in. She worries that Jaimy might have changed his mind about her because of this.

Jacky catches a coach and arranges to play her fiddle in return for half the price...