As to the little girls in Polchester, he had frankly found them tiresome and stupid, thinking of themselves, terrified of the most natural phenomena and untruthful in their statements.

He had been always independent and reserved with everyone, and bud never, in all his life, had a close friend, but there had been, especially of late, boys with whom it had been amusing to spend an hour or two, and since his fight with the Dean's Ernest he had thought that it would be rather interesting to make a further trial of strength with whomsoever...
Girls were stupid, uninteresting, conceited and slow.

He never, in all his life, wanted to have anything to do with girls.

But Charlotte Le Page was another matter.

She had, in the first place, become quite a tradition in the Cole family.