Spain in the late forties. After her boyfriend and lover José Miguel, a well-known young painter, ideologically opposed to Franco's regime, is imprisoned, Julia suffers from a deep depression and moves away from Madrid.

The only daughter of a wealthy banking family, Julia is a highly cultivated woman: brought up in Switzerland and England, she is a Philosophy and Literature graduate who dreams to become a writer. When we first meet her, she is driving her car towards the small Asturian village of Cerralbos del Sella (in the northwest of the country), where her parents own a large family manor —Llendelabarca— a place where she has spent the happiest summers of her childhood.

Llendelabarca is looked after by Aunt Gala, who lives there with her daughter-in-law, Pilara, and her grandson, Juanito. Soon after her arrival, Julia establishes a deep-hearted relationship not only with her housekeepers and the school teacher, Don Orfeo, but even with the unhappy priest of the village, Don Matias. As time goes by, the city girl doesn't feel lonely any more, perhaps for the first time in years.