A poor young woman, unhappy with her inevitable destiny as a suburban housewife, gets a job as a nanny for a wealthy family and falls in love with her employer's brother, using every trick to win him over and ultimately become the lady of the mansion. .
Based on the best-selling 1969 novel by Irwin Shaw, the series follows the divergent career courses of the impoverished German American Jordache brothers.
In the fictional town of Fernwood, Ohio, suburban housewife Mary Hartman seeks the kind of domestic perfection promised by Reader’s Digest and TV commercials. Instead she finds herself suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune: mass murders, low-flying airplanes and waxy yellow buildup on her kitchen floor.
Carlão is a taxi driver who experiences a drama of conscience after fleeing bank robbers leave a suitcase with stolen money in his car: he doesn't know whether to hand it over to the police, running the risk of being accused of being an accomplice in the robbery, or whether to use the money to solve his problems.
The soap opera follows the story of young Aurélia Camargo (Norma Blum), a girl who falls in love with the ambitious young journalist Fernando Seixas (Cláudio Marzo), who also falls in love with her, but rejects her when he receives an invitation to marry Adelaide (Fátima Freire), the daughter of Tavares do Amaral (Felipe Wagner), a wealthy banker. Feeling abandoned by her great love, Aurélia dreams of one day having him back. Until, when she turns 18, she is surprised with an inheritance from her grandfather, and becomes a very rich woman, allowing her to create her own rules for her life. However, for the society of the time, it was not good form for a woman to enjoy such independence. For this reason, Aurélia begins to rely on a distant relative, Dona Firmina Mascarenhas (Zilka Sallaberry), to act as her mother, and on the administrator Mr. Lemos (Alberto Perez), to guide her in business. So, she sees a great opportunity to have Fernando in her life again.
When his father passes away, Estácio (Osmar Prado) and his aunt Úrsula (Ida Gomes) receive his will and are surprised to discover that most of the inheritance was left to Helena (Lúcia Alves), a previously unknown daughter. In the will, her father asks that his daughter be taken in by her relatives. The news infuriates Úrsula, who has been in charge of the family business and caring for Estácio since his mother passed away, and does not accept Helena willingly, seeing her as an intruder in the family. In addition to Úrsula, someone who is not pleased with the girl's arrival is Dr. Camargo (Rogério Fróes), father of Eugênia (Ângela Valério), Estácio's fiancée. Even so, Estácio obeys his father's request and takes the girl to live with his family. Helena has a cheerful and outgoing temperament and her arrival affects everyone's lives. At first, she is hostile to Úrsula, but later wins her sympathy.