After the death of her extravagant father, Quina, still a young girl, must hold together the remaining inheritance of the northern Portuguese farm. The brothers leave the village, and the sister marries an unloved man. Quina will not marry the man she loves, as the little land available for a dowry is insufficient. Her struggle to preserve the inheritance and establish her own position in the world entails not only hard work and self-discipline but also requires her to continually set aside her longings and desires for happiness. She renounces marriage and becomes the matriarch, lonely amidst an unrelentingly urbanizing family clan, the active center of a hesitant male world. To the people of her rural world, the calculating, devout farmers as well as the confused, playful noblewomen, she becomes the "Sibyl," whose counsel is sought, yet remains inscrutable.