" She looked up and a seagull was flying slowly backward and forward, seeming to gather all the light of the place with his shining wings and to trail it in long threads of silver after him, as though weaving a pattern in the air over her head, like one of those canopies powdered with stars that one sees in old pictures over the heads of queens. She looked up at him, loving him. He was a symbol of prayer, of the prayer that went on day and night in the great convent that was towering up above her, the convent that was home. "

― Elizabeth Goudge , Green Dolphin Street