Too terrible!.

..

And Ernest, such a quiet, well-behaved little boy as a rule.

It must have been Jeremy who...
While they were waiting in the decent dusk of Miss Maddison's sitting-room for a cleaned and chastened Jeremy, Mary touched her aunt's arm and whispered in her nervous voice: "Aunt Amy--Jeremy hit Ernest because he said rude things about you." "About me! Nonsense, child." "No, but it was, really.

Ernest said horrid things about you, and then Jeremy hit him." "About me?
What things ?" "That you were ugly," eagerly continued Mary--never a tactful child, and intent now only upon Jeremy's reputation--"and wore ugly clothes and horrid things.