He goes on a long voyage to earn money to raise his young daughter Aurora, but he has no one to leave her with. Then he meets her, a young girl who, because of her father's death, has been left without a home or means of subsistence. It is a fair exchange - for a year she looks after Aurora, and he lets her live in his house and sends her money. But when Sebastiano returns home almost two years later, it is not a frightened teenage girl, but she is a young beauty.