“Do you want to be a gentleman, to spite her or to gain her over?” Biddy quietly asked me, after a pause…”Because, if it is to spite her,” Biddy pursued, “I should think – but you know best – that might be better and more independently done by caring nothing for her words. And if it is to gain her over, I should think – but you know best – she was not worth gaining over.”
– Charles Dickens
Great Expectations, Chapter 17. Biddy sometimes appears to know Pip better than he knows himself. Here she questions his motives for wanting to be a gentleman. She wonders if it is to spite the girl who made fun of him for being common. But if it is to win Estella over, then she is not worth winning over, the very grounded Biddy advises.