Flannery O'Connor's short story A Temple of the Holy Ghost tells of a precocious 12-year-old girl and two country boys who have come to court her visiting cousins. The girl overhears her teenage cousins mock a nun, Sister Perpetua, who has suggested a formula to use in fending off fresh young men in the back seats of cars. "Stop sir! I am a Temple of the Holy Ghost!" the nun taught the girls to say. The cousins think such advice hilarious. The girl, however, is moved. The news that she is the dwelling place of God makes her feel as if somebody has given her a present.