This may be proved in several ways. The house at Little Gidding contained two _married_ families, the boys and girls all growing up together. The girls were purposely trained in such domestic matters as would fit them for _good wives_, and five of them did eventually marry. The two eldest alone, having reached the ages of thirty and thirty-two, resolved to remain unmarried, but in no way took vows. Nicholas Ferrar himself was once taxed with having started a "nunnery," and replied that the name of "nuns" was odious, and declared himself against such vows of single life with great earnestness. Again, a visitor to Little Gidding, describing the place and the family, says, "I saluted the mother and daughter _not like nuns_, but as we salute other women." Probably when the phrase "Nuns of Little Gidding" is used at the present time, it is used in no reproachful sense; but the name is misleading, and should be avoided, if for no other reason, because it was invented by the enemies of Mr. Ferrar's family and objected to by themselves. The family, as a matter of fact, were by no means recluses; they went about amongst their neighbours, and were "very well reported of by all who knew them." They purposely selected a quiet part of the country to live in, that they might not be interrupted in their manifold employments; but they appear to have been always ready to receive visitors, and to treat them with hospitality. Ferrar's rules for his own life were certainly somewhat austere, and as time went on he increased its rigour, more especially after his mother's death; but he never enforced on others what he did himself, and every hour of the day appears to have been spent usefully and happily.