A long-lost Uncle Horst arrives at the French school for girls to take Madeline back with him to Vienna. She is to go to a very fine finishing school there and, although Madeline is heartbroken that she will have to leave her friends and Miss Clavel, she is happy to finally have a family to call her own. But something is not right, and it's up to Madeline's friends to rescue her before she loses forever the only family she has ever known.