Though the story is fictional some people and events from actual history are discussed (such as Emperor Franz-Josef and the founding of the German empire).
Twelve years later, in 1908, Annika is attending a local school whilst helping the adult maids with the day-to-day duties of running the household.
She celebrates her 'Found Day', the anniversary of her discovery in the church, by attending a Lipizzaner horse show at Vienna's Spanish Riding School.
Loremarie Egghart, the snobbish daughter of Herr Egghart, offers Annika money to read to her great-aunt, and soon Annika learns that she was once a famous theatre personality who was called 'La Rondine' and received expensive gifts from her audiences, including a Russian emerald called the Star of Kazan.
When the beautiful Frau Edeltraut von Tannenberg comes to the professors' house and announces that she is Annika's long-lost birth mother.
Spittal is gloomy and derelict, and much of the furniture has been sold and the staff reduced to an elderly maid and a Roma boy named Zed.
She begins to dislike Hermann, who abuses both Rocco and Zed's dog, Hector, to whom he tied firecrackers that permanently injured him.
When Edeltraut returns, she is dressed extravagantly and gives gifts to her family, including galoshes for Annika that are a size too small.
She claims that her godfather has died and bequeathed a large sum of money to her, which in fact she has sold some of La Rondine's jewels.
Annika has actually signed over La Rondine's jewels, including her famous Star of Kazan, but is unaware of what she has done.
Afraid of being arrested, Zed flees Spittal with Rocco and arrives in Vienna to tell the professors his suspicions about Annika's mother.
When the professors, Ellie, and Stefan discover that a pupil died by suicide they plot Annika's escape, successfully taking her back to Vienna.
Pauline, upset from the proceedings, decides to spend her time on her hobby of collecting news articles of heroic deeds, but spots a piece stating that the lawyer who signed the birth certificate that Frau Edeltraut had of Annika's was jailed for fraud.
This spurs Pauline to visit the midwife in Pettelsdorf, only to discover that the women had a stroke twenty years beforehand and can only sign her name.
By this time, Annika is already on the boat with Frau Edeltraut and about to set off on the voyage, but fortunately Herr Egghart has arrived in his motor car, and they speed to the river Danube.
With Frau Edeltraut discredited, Annika splits the wealth of the jewel sales with the Eggharts and proceeds to live a content life with her friends, Zed and the professors and Sigrid and Ellie, who she now recognises as her mother.
Annika reveals a letter she found in Spittal, written by Edeltraut's father before he passed away, that declares Zed the rightful owner of Rocco, who is in turn determined to be a Lipizzaner.
Hermann returns from his military boarding school after being expelled for cowardice, and announces his desire to leave Germany and become a painter in Paris.
On her next Found Day, Annika takes her friends and family to the Viennese Giant Ferris Wheel, where she scatters flowers from its zenith in memory of La Rondine.
Gudrun is a rather pathetic looking girl who is the daughter of Edeltraut von Tannenberg's sister and cousin to Hermann, whom she worships as a hero.
Although the Master bought him originally for Hermann, he changed his mind and left Rocco to Zed shortly before having a stroke.