"Have--mercy upon me, O Lord, according to Thy loving kindness, according to the multitude of Thy tender mercies," she shrieked out.

Then the words ended with a long-drawn-out "Oh--oh--" Had Maria not been familiar with the words, she could not have understood them.

Not a consonant was fairly sounded, the vowels were elided.

She went, feeling as if her legs were sticks, close to her mother's bed, and opened the cologne bottle with hands which shook like an old man's with the palsy.

She poured some cologne on the handkerchief and a pungent odor filled the room.