Add gallery description under album view?

Is it possible?
I am editing the album-compact.php to suit my client needs,
so it shows the title for each album thumbnail. it works just fine using:

<?echo $gallery->title ?>

But the same trick for getting the gallery description dont work, the code
is correct :

<?echo $gallery->description ?>

so whats the deal here? Anyone know any turn for this to work?

Thanks