After Catharine had been some time at the house of the clerk, a certain Dr. Gluck, who was the minister of Marienburg, happening to be on a visit to the clerk, saw her and heard her story. The minister was very much pleased with the appearance and manners of the child, and he proposed that the clerk should give her up to him. This the clerk was willing to do, as his income was very small, and the addition even of such a child to his family of course somewhat increased his expenses. Besides, he knew that it would be much more advantageous for Catharine, for the time being, and also much more conducive to her future success in life, to be brought up in the minister's family at Marienburg than in his own humble home in the little village. So Catharine went to live with the minister.[2] Here she soon made herself a great favorite. She was very intelligent and active, and very ambitious to learn whatever the minister's wife was willing to teach her. She also took great interest in making herself useful in every possible way, and displayed in her household avocations, and in all her other duties, a sort of womanly energy which was quite remarkable in one of her years. She learned to knit, to spin, and to sew, and she assisted the minister's wife very much in these and similar occupations. She had learned to read in her native tongue at the clerk's school, but now she conceived the idea of learning the German language. She devoted herself to this task with great assiduity and success, and as soon as she had made such progress as to be able to read in that language, she spent all her leisure time in perusing the German books which she found in the minister's library. Years passed away, and Catharine grew up to be a young woman, and then a certain young man, a subaltern officer in the Swedish army--for this was at the time when Livonia was ill possession of the Swedes--fell in love with her. The story was, that Catharine one day, in some way or other, fell into the hands of two Swedish soldiers, by whom she would probably have been greatly maltreated; but the officer, coming by at that time, rescued her and sent her safe to Dr. Gluck. The officer had lost one of his arms in some battle, and was covered with the scars of other wounds; but he was a very generous and brave man, and was highly regarded by all who knew him. When he offered Catharine his hand, she was strongly induced by her gratitude to him to accept it, but she said she must ask the minister's approval of his proposal, for he had been a father to her, she said, and she would take no important step without his consent. The minister, after suitable inquiry respecting the officer's character and prospects, readily gave his consent, and so it was settled that Catharine should be married.