Our story begins with an orphan boy named Philip Pirrip, who called himself Pip because his infant tongue could manage nothing more.

Pip lived near the cold, wet marshes of Kent with his stern sister, Mrs. Joe, who boasted of bringing him up by hand, which meant frequent scoldings and beatings with a wax-ended cane named Tickler.

Fortunately, Pip had a protector, his sister's husband, Joe Gargery, a gentle giant of a blacksmith with a heart as soft as his forge's bellows.
Joe was Pip's best friend and his only comfort in the cold cottage.

On a freezing Christmas Eve, seven-year-old Pip was visiting his parents' graves in the lonely churchyard when a terrifying man sprang from the shadows. He was shivering, dressed in muddy rags, with a heavy iron shackle on his leg, an escaped convict from the prison ships anchored in the river.
The man shook Pip, demanding a file and some food. He warned that if Pip failed to bring them to the old battery the next morning, a savage young companion would find him and tear out his heart and liver.

Terrified, Pip crept into the pantry early on Christmas morning and stole bread, cheese, mincemeat, and a beautiful pork pie saved for dinner, along with a file from Joe's forge.
He delivered them through the thick fog to the shivering convict, who devoured the pie and immediately began filing his iron shackle.
The man cast a look of strange gratitude after Pip as the boy slipped away.
During Christmas dinner, the theft was nearly discovered, but soldiers suddenly arrived, needing handcuffs repaired.
Joe mended them, and he and Pip joined the soldiers on the misty marshes to hunt the escapees.
They found Pip's convict fighting another escaped prisoner in a muddy ditch.
Before being taken back to the prison ship, the convict looked at Joe and lied, confessing he had stolen the pork pie himself, so no one else would be blamed.
Joe kindly forgave him, refusing to let a fellow creature starve.

Years passed. Pip attended a simple evening school where a kind orphan girl named Biddy helped him learn. He was destined to become Joe's apprentice, but when Pip was 11, everything changed.
A wealthy, reclusive lady named Miss Havisham sent for a boy to come to her ruined mansion, Satis House, to play.
There, Pip was met by Estella, a beautiful but incredibly cold girl his own age.
She led him through dark, dusty passages to Miss Havisham, who sat in a yellowed wedding dress amidst decaying bridal finery, all her clocks stopped forever at 20 minutes to 9.
"Play, boy, play!" Miss Havisham commanded.
When Pip was too frightened, she had Estella play cards with him.
Estella mocked Pip's coarse hands, his thick boots, and his habit of calling the knaves jacks.
Afterward, she tossed him his food on the courtyard stones as if he were a dog.

Alone in the shadows, Pip wept bitter tears.
For the first time, he felt a burning shame for his simple life and his beloved forge, wishing with all his heart that he could be a gentleman to please the cold, beautiful girl.
For years, Pip's life was divided. By day, he worked as an apprentice in Joe's forge, his face black with soot and his muscles growing strong.
But by night, his mind wandered back to the dark, dusty rooms of Satis House.
There, he learned the story of the stopped clocks.
Many years ago, on her wedding day, Miss Havisham had been betrayed by the man she loved.
At exactly 20 minutes to 9, a letter arrived, and the groom ran away with her money.
From that moment, she stopped every clock, left her wedding feast to rot, and dedicated her life to a bitter revenge.
She had adopted Estella for one purpose: to raise her to be so beautiful and heartless that she would break the hearts of men.
"Love her, Pip," she would whisper, her eyes burning. "If she tears your heart to pieces, love her."
And Pip did, with a blind, desperate devotion, even as Estella grew more cruel.

When Estella went to France to be educated, Pip felt like a prisoner in the soot. He confessed his sorrows to Biddy, a wise, gentle young woman.
"I want to be a gentleman, Biddy," he sighed, "because Estella thinks me common."
Biddy looked at him quietly. "If she is a good person, she would not care. And if she is not, her opinion is not worth your happiness."
It was the wisest advice, but Pip was too blinded by love to hear it. He wanted to escape.
One evening, his wish was granted. A formidable London lawyer named Mr. Jaggers, who smelled of scented soap and had a habit of biting his forefinger, arrived at the local inn.
He walked with Pip and Joe back to their cottage and laid his large hands on the table.
"Pip, you are a young man of great expectations," Jaggers announced. "You will one day come into a handsome fortune and be brought up as a gentleman."
Pip could hardly breathe. Jaggers added two conditions: Pip must always keep his name, and his benefactor's identity must remain a profound secret.
Pip was certain it was Miss Havisham, preparing him to be worthy of Estella.
When Jaggers offered Joe money to release Pip from his apprenticeship, Joe stood tall, placing a rough hand on Pip's shoulder.
"If you think money can buy Pip away, you don't know the blacksmith's heart," Joe said, his voice trembling. "There is no money that can pay for the love between us."
Pip felt a sharp pang of guilt, but the excitement of his new life soon pushed it away. Fitted for fine new clothes, he began to look down on his old neighbors, and even on Joe and Biddy.
On the morning of his departure, Pip refused to let Joe walk him to the coach, ashamed of his dusty jacket.
"Goodbye, Pip, old chap," Joe said, hugging him tight. "The forge is always open."
Pip walked away alone, but as the coach rumbled toward London, leaving the misty marshes behind, he looked out the window and wept.
He was leaving the only man who had ever truly loved him, wondering if the price of becoming a gentleman was far higher than he had ever imagined.
London in the early 1800s was not the shining city of gold Pip had pictured. It was a vast, dirty place, filled with the roar of carriages and streets slick with black mud.
There, Pip moved into Barnard's Inn with a young man named Herbert Pocket.
He was astonished to find that Herbert was the very same pale young gentleman he had once fought in a silly boxing match at Satis House years ago.
But there was no anger between them now. Herbert was a wonderfully cheerful, kind-hearted fellow, with no money, but a great deal of hope.
He welcomed Pip with open arms and gently taught him how to eat like a gentleman, and how to speak without his country accent.
"We shall be the best of friends, Pip," Herbert grinned, "and I shall call you Handel, after the composer who wrote a piece about a blacksmith. It is a musical link to your past."

Under Herbert's guidance, Pip's new life began. He studied with Herbert's father, Mr. Matthew Pocket, and began to spend his allowance freely. He bought fine waistcoats, joined an expensive club, and hired a boy in fancy livery to run his errands.
But the more money Pip spent, the more debts he ran up, and the more restless and unhappy he became.
Then, a letter arrived from Biddy. Joe was coming to London.
Instead of being glad, Pip was filled with a cold, miserable dread. He was deeply ashamed of his old friend, terrified that his fancy new companions would see him with a man who smelled of coal smoke and spoke with a thick country accent.
When Joe arrived in his stiff, uncomfortable Sunday clothes, the visit was painful.
He nervously dropped his top hat and called Pip, "Sir," a word that cut Pip like a knife, though Pip remained cold and formal.
Sensing Pip's embarrassment, Joe stood up with a quiet, sorrowful dignity.
"Pip, dear old chap," Joe said softly, "I'm wrong out of the forge, and I'm wrong in London. You won't find me half so much amiss if you think of me at the forge with my hammer in my hand. God bless you."

As soon as Joe walked out, Pip realized what he had done. He had let his pride make him ashamed of the best, most honest man he had ever known.
He ran down into the rainy street, shouting, "Joe! Joe!" But the busy crowds had already swallowed him up.
Pip was left standing in the rain, a gentleman in fine clothes with a heart full of shame.

Meanwhile, Estella had returned from France, more beautiful and dazzling than ever, but also more distant.
Sent to London by Miss Havisham, she was escorted everywhere by Pip, who spent his days in a fever of love and misery.
When Pip begged her to show some sympathy, Estella warned him, her face as still as marble, "I have been raised to have no heart," she said. "If you love me, you are loving a shadow."

But Pip clung to his great expectations, sure that Miss Havisham was his secret benefactor, and that he and Estella would one day marry.
He was 23 years old when the storm finally broke.
It was a dark, tempestuous night in late autumn. The wind howled down the chimneys of London, rattling the windows of Pip's chambers.
Herbert was away on business in France, and Pip was alone, reading by the light of a single lamp.
Suddenly, as the city clock struck midnight, Pip heard a sound that made him freeze, a heavy, stumbling footstep on the stairs.

Pip took his lamp and went to the landing. "Who's there?" he called out into the dark stairwell.
"Is there a gentleman here by the name of Pip?" a rough, weathered voice called back.
"Yes," Pip said. "Come up."
An old man climbed into the light of the lamp. He wore a heavy, coarse coat, his graying hair fell over his forehead, and his face was bronzed and lined by years of hard sun and wind.
He looked around Pip's comfortable room with a strange, possessive sort of wonder.
"You don't know me," the man said, his voice trembling.
"I do not," Pip said, feeling a sudden, unexplained chill of recognition.

The man set his hat on the table, looked at Pip's fine clothes and books, and held out both his hands.
"You acted nobly by me many a year ago," he said, "and I have never forgotten it."
In an instant, the memory of that cold Christmas morning on the gray marshes rushed back: the shivering man, the filed iron, the stolen pork pie.
"You!" Pip gasped, stepping back in horror. "The convict!"
"Yes, Pip," the man said, tears starting in his eyes. "I am Abel Magwitch. I was sent to Australia for life, but I worked as a sheep farmer, lived rough, and saved every penny. I did it for the boy who helped me on the marshes. I swore that if I ever made a fortune, that boy should be a gentleman."
Pip felt the air leave his lungs as the room seemed to spin.
"I am your benefactor, Pip!" Magwitch cried, his face glowing with a fierce, proud joy. "It wasn't the fine lady at Satis House, it was me! I'm your second father. Every dollar I made I sent to Mr. Jaggers to buy you this grand life. I wanted to make a gentleman that no one could look down on, and I've done it!"

Every illusion Pip had built his life upon for the last 10 years shattered into dust. It had not been Miss Havisham. He was not destined for Estella.
The fortune that had made him look down on Joe, the money that had made him too proud to walk through his own village, had come from an escaped convict.
A man who, if caught in England, would be hanged.

As Magwitch knelt by his chair, kissing Pip's hands with a rough, dog-like devotion, Pip felt a terrible wave of disgust and terror.
He had abandoned the true gold of Joe's love for a criminal's wealth.
Yet, looking down at the old man's gray head and the immense, dangerous love that had brought him across the world, a cold spark of pity began to stir.
Magwitch had risked everything just to look at his gentleman, with no one else in the world.
"You must hide," Pip whispered, his voice cracking. "If they find you here, they will take you."
"Let them," Magwitch said, smiling through his tears. "I've seen my boy. I've made him a gentleman. I can die happy now."
The days that followed were a nightmare of secrecy and fear. Pip and Herbert knew they had to get Magwitch out of England before the police, or his old enemies, discovered him.
They soon learned that Magwitch's life had been ruined by a man named Compeyson. Compeyson was a gentleman crook, a smooth-talking villain with fine manners and a cold heart.
It was Compeyson who had dragged Magwitch into crime, and then, when they were caught, used his expensive lawyers to get a light sentence, while Magwitch was thrown into the prison hulks in chains.
It was also Compeyson who, years before, had stood up Miss Havisham on her wedding day, stealing her fortune and leaving her to rot. The same man had broken both their lives.
Pip knew he could no longer touch a single penny of Magwitch's money. His conscience would not allow it. He was poor again, but he could not abandon the old man who had given him everything.
They formed a plan. Herbert and Pip bought a rowboat and rode up and down the River Thames every day, getting the river guards used to seeing them.
Soon, they would row Magwitch down the river to slip him aboard a foreign-bound steamship.
But before the escape, Pip was summoned one last time to Satis House.
He found Miss Havisham sitting by her cold hearth, looking older and terribly fragile.
Pip told her the truth, that he knew she was not his benefactor, and spoke of his despair over Estella, who was about to marry the cruel Bentley Drummle.
"You have ruined me," Pip said with quiet sadness.

Miss Havisham looked at him, and for the first time, she saw the real pain she had caused by trying to avenge her own broken heart.
Falling to her knees, she cried, "What have I done?"
Pip softly replied, "I forgive you."

As he walked down the dark gallery to leave, a sudden instinct made him turn back. He looked into her dressing room just as a spark from the hearth popped and landed on her yellowed bridal veil.
In an instant, the ancient silk took flame.
Pip rushed in, dragged her to the ground, and smothered the fire with the heavy velvet tablecloth, burning his own hands and arms in the process.
Miss Havisham survived, but her spirit was broken. She died a few weeks later, a repentant woman whispering, "I forgive her."

The morning of the escape was cold, gray, and thick with mist.
Pip, his hands bandaged, sat in the rowboat with Herbert, while Magwitch sat wrapped in a dark coat.
They rode for hours down the widening river.
Just as the great foreign steamer came into view, another boat slipped out from the reeds.
"Hold!" a voice shouted. "Abel Magwitch, I arrest you!"
In the bow stood Compeyson. He had betrayed Magwitch once again.
With a roar of fury, Magwitch leaped into the police boat to get at his old enemy.
The two men grappled and fell into the freezing, churning water.
After a desperate struggle beneath the waves, Magwitch's head broke the surface.
He was dragged into the police boat, gasping and badly injured by the ship's paddle wheel.
Compeyson never came up. He had drowned in the dark water, lost in the very moment of his revenge.
Abel Magwitch lay in the prison hospital, his body broken by the river and heavy chains.
Sentenced to death, he was too weak to face the gallows.
Pip never left his side. Every day he sat by the old man's bed, holding his rough hand.
The disgust Pip had once felt was gone, replaced by a deep love for this man who had sacrificed everything to make him happy.
On his last day, as the afternoon sun cast a golden beam through the dusty window, Magwitch opened his eyes.
"Are you there, my boy?"
"I am here, dear Abel," Pip said. He leaned down to share a secret he had learned from Mr. Jaggers. "Abel, you had a daughter once, whom you thought was lost. She lived. She is a beautiful lady. And Abel, I love her with all my heart."
Magwitch looked at him with a look of supreme, beautiful peace. He raised Pip's hand to his lips, kissed it, and then his chest fell, and he was still.
Pip felt terribly ill after Magwitch's death, burning with fever.
When he finally opened his eyes, a cool, gentle hand was wiping his forehead.
"Joe?" Pip whispered, wondering if he was dreaming.
"Which it is, old chap," Joe said, his face beaming with tears. "And you're going to get well now, Pip. Thank God!"
Joe had rushed to London the moment he heard of Pip's illness. He nursed him night and day, and quietly paid off all of Pip's debts with his own hard-earned savings.
"Oh, Joe!" Pip wept, throwing his arms around the blacksmith's neck. "Can you ever forgive me for being so ungrateful, so ashamed of you?"
"Pip, dear old chap," Joe said, wiping his eyes. "What's between you and me is all over and gone. We've always been the best of friends, and we always will be."

When Pip recovered, Joe slipped away early one morning, leaving a note on the table. He returned to his forge, not wanting Pip to feel obligated.
Pip went back to the marsh country a few weeks later. He found that Joe and Biddy had married, and they were living happily in the little cottage by the forge. They had a bright-eyed little boy of their own now, whom they had named Pip.
Pip sat by the fire with them, feeling the warmth of the hearth. But he knew he must now earn his own living without expectations.
He went abroad to Egypt, working honestly for many years as a clerk in Herbert's firm, eventually paying back every penny he owed to Joe.

11 years passed before Pip returned to England.
One evening, at sunset, he walked out to the ruins of Satis House. Only the stone walls of the garden remained, overgrown with ivy.
As he walked, he saw a figure approaching.
It was Estella. She was changed. Her cruel husband had died, and suffering had softened her beautiful face. Her eyes were now filled with gentle understanding.
"I have often thought of you, Pip," she said softly. "I behaved terribly to you, but I did not know what love was then. Can you forgive me?"

"We are both different now," Pip said. "We have both learned."
They walked out of the ruined garden together, hand in hand. The evening mist was rising, but the light of the moon was bright, casting no shadow of another parting between them.
Our storyteller, Charles Dickens, wrote this tale to show us that the world is full of different kinds of wealth.
Pip spent his whole youth believing that to be a gentleman meant having fine clothes, a grand house, and money to spend in London. He was ashamed of the dust of the forge and the rough hands of the man who loved him best.
But by the end of his journey, he discovered that the finest gentleman in the whole story was not a man with a title or a fortune. It was Joe Gargery, who stood by his forge with a heart full of forgiveness, and Abel Magwitch, who gave everything he had to a boy who had once shown him a small act of kindness in the dark.
So, as the stars come out and the world grows quiet around you, here is a question to keep and to think about as you drift off to sleep.
What truly makes someone a gentleman? Is it the money in their pocket, the manners they show to the world, or the kindness they keep in their heart?