Raquel and Luísa are long-time friends who, despite the distance between them, continue to correspond almost monthly. Between court gossip, updates on their daily lives, and youthful musings about marriage and love, Luísa suspects that Raquel is gradually falling in love with a certain Dr. Alberto, she, on the other hand, despises him. From the limited perspective of an epistolary plot, Machado de Assis brilliantly builds an atmosphere of doubt and dissimulation that hangs over the story until the very last line.