On Halloween night it was traditional that there would be a mascarade party in the Avonton Hall. For one of these parties in the early thirties Elizabeth Robertson, Lois' good friend, invited Lois to come to stay with the Robertsons and to attend the Avonton Party. After supper on that Halloween night, the two friends went upstairs to Elizabeth's bedroom on the second floor to put on their costumes and to prepare for the party. As they were dressing one of them looked up and started screaming for there, outside the bedroom window danging from a rope was a dead man, a cord tightly knotted around his neck, swagging limply in the wind. As could be expected the girls ran out of the room and generally reacted in exactly the way that Jean, Elizabeth's younger sister had hoped they would. For it was Jean who had created the hanged man using her father's clothes and a rope. It was Jean who had climbed up above her sister's bedroom and lowered the mannequin down outside bedroom window. While Lois can no longer remember what she wore to the masquerade party or who was at it, the image of the hanged man swaying outside the bedroom window remains as vividly clear as the night she saw him.
