bore a cherub's head fanning three lilies on a
shield or. It was in the balcony behind this shield, long since blocked
up as you see, that the musicians sat on that ball night of which
Gaskell dreamt. From it they looked down on the hall below where dancing
was going forward, and I will now take you downstairs that you may see
if the description tallies."

So saying, he raised himself, and descending the stairs with much less
difficulty than he had shown in mounting them, flung open the door
which I had seen in the passage and ushered us into the shop on the
ground-floor. The evening light had now faded so much that we could
scarcely see even in the passage, and the shop having its windows
barricaded with shutters, was in complete darkness. Raffaelle, however,
struck a match and lit three half-burnt candles in a tarnished sconce
upon the wall.

The shop had evidently been lately in the occupation of a wine-seller,
and there were still several empty wooden wine-butts, and some broken
flasks on shelves. In one corner I noticed that the earth which formed
the floor had been turned up with spades. There was a small heap of
mould, and a large flat stone was thus exposed below the surface. This
stone had an iron ring attached to it, and seemed to cover the aperture
of a well, or perhaps a vault. At the back of the shop, and furthest
from the street, were two lofty arches separated by a column in the
middle, from which the outside casing had been stripped.

To these arches John pointed and said, "That is a part of the arcade
which once ran down the whole length of the hall. Only these two arches
are now left, and the fine marbles which doubtless coated the outside of
this dividing pillar have been stripped off. On a summer's night about
one hundred years ago dancing was going on in this hall. There were a
dozen couples dancing a wild step such as is never seen now. The tune
that the musicians were playing in the gallery above was taken from the
'Areopagita' suite of Graziani. Gaskell has often told me that when
he played it the music brought with it to his mind a sense of some
impending catastrophe, which culminated at the end of the first movement
of the _Gagliarda_. It was just at that moment, Sophy, that an
Englishman who was dancing here was stabbed in the back and foully
murdered."

I had scarcely heard all that John had said, and had certainly not been
able to take in its import; but without waiting to hear if I shou