32. You have heard, O parents, in what virtues and pursuits you ought to train your daughters, that you may possess those by whose merits your faults may be redeemed. The virgin is an offering for her mother, by whose daily sacrifice the divine power is appeased. A virgin is the inseparable pledge of her parents, who neither troubles them for a dowry, nor forsakes them, nor injures them in word or deed. From this passage it is clear that in the days of St. Ambrose it was not yet the rule at Milan, though it was in other places, for the consecrated virgins to live together, but the older custom still continued.