At the end was a gallery or balcony for the musicians, which on its front carried a coat of arms." I remembered this perfectly and told John so, adding that the shield bore a cherub's head fanning three lilies on a golden field.
"It is strange," John went on, "that the description of a scene which our friend thought a mere effort of his own imagination has impressed itself so deeply on both our minds.

But the picture which he drew was more than a fancy, for we are at this minute in the very hall of his dream." I could not gather what my brother meant, and thought his reason was failing him; but he continued, "This miserable floor on which we stand has of course been afterwards built in; but you see above you the old ceiling, and here at the end was the musicians' gallery with the shield upon its front." He pointed to the carved and whitewashed dado which had hitherto so puzzled me.

I stepped up to it, and although the lath-and-plaster partition wall was now built around it, it was clear that its curved outline might very easily, as John said, have formed part of the front of a coved gallery.

I looked closet at the relief-work which had adorned it.

Though the edges were all rubbed off, and the mouldings in some cases entirely removed, I could trace without difficulty a shield in the midst; and a more narrow inspection revealed underneath the whitewash, which had partly peeled away, enough remnants of colour to show that it had certainly been once painted gold and borne a cherub's head with three lilies.
"That is the shield of the old Neapolitan house of Doma-Cavalli," my brother continued; "they bore a cherub's head fanning three lilies on a shield or.