Miss Havisham beckoned her to come close…”Let me see you play cards with this boy.”
“With this boy? Why, he is a common labouring boy!”
I thought I overheard Miss Havisham answer, – only it seemed so unlikely, – “Well? You can break his heart.”
“What do you play, boy?” asked Estella of myself, with the greatest disdain.
“Nothing but beggar my neighbour, miss.”
“Beggar him,” said Miss Havisham to Estella. So we sat down to cards.
– Charles Dickens
Great Expectations, Chapter 8. Miss Havisham is portrayed as manipulative and vengeful in this conversation with her adopted daughter Estella. Foreshadowed is her diabolical plan to get Pip fall in love with Estella so she can break his heart. This is to be her revenge against men for her own broken heart years earlier. So she forces Estella to play cards with Pip. When Estella objects to playing with a low class laboring boy, Miss Havisham suggests using him to “break his heart.” There is irony in her telling Estella to “beggar” him, since Estella is a wealthy and beautiful girl and Pip is by contrast a poor orphan. But what she means is to emotionally ruin him. With Pip unaware of Miss Havisham’s plan to emotionally beggar him through Estella, this is also dramatic irony.