Susana is an unappreciated, naive and somewhat clumsy orphan who has lived since she was a child at doña Engracia's house, because her mother died a few days after she was born. In this house, which also houses three nephews of doña Engracia without a penny to one's name, Susana is the maid of all. Economic necessities lead Engracia to rent a room. Felipe, a handsome man with a bad reputation, will reply to the ad.

Shows the unfailing love of two women for the same man, one as his mistress, the other as his wife. The lives of these characters intertwine and are determined by the variegated fabric of delicate tradition and established vices shaky politics and intrigue of the society they live in. Based on the major novel (1877) by Benito Perez Galdos.