Basílio, cousin of Luísa, is expected to arrive in town. Luísa is a beautiful woman that likes to read romances and passed
her childhood and her first
relationship with her cousin that was a rich boy. He became poor and came to Brazil where he regained his richness, and has been travelling through Europe. Luísa exchanged
letters with Basílio and three years after his departure she met Jorge that at the beginning didn't pleased her physically, but she agreed to marry him when he told her "Let's get married , hem". Jorge is a mine engineer, and during the summer (on the North) he spends a period of his work out of home in São Domingos. Luísa is well behaved and a close friend to Leopoldina, a young girl married to João Noronha, a custom’s employee. But Jorge doesn't like that friendship very much. Although always with people around (counsellor Acácio " model of pompous mediocrity and satisfied with itself", Sebastião, D. Felicidade, Juliana, Joana, etc), Luísa doesn't resist the charm of her cousin Basílio and ends up in a relationship in the absence of her husband on the new arrival of her old boyfriend to Lisbon. Juliana, Luísa’s maid, manages to acquire the love letters that demonstrated the cousins’ relationship and begins to blackmail. Juliana leaves Luísa exhausted and makes the "bourgeois Lady" pass trough all the difficulties of a maid. Basílio disappears and leaves his lover to the plans of Juliana. Luísa searches a way to acquire the love letters, which she accomplishes through Sebastião, a friend of the family. Jorge arrives from his period of work in São Domingos. Luísa ends up getting sick and die, and Jorge discovers his wife infidelity.