After Pip receives an unexpected boon of a gentleman's upbringing and the "great expectation" of a future fortune from an unknown benefactor, he finds himself released from the blacksmith's apprenticeship that had been funded by Miss Havisham as compensation for Pip's years of service to her. He also finds himself thrown into Estella's social milieu in London, where Pip goes to be educated as a gentleman. He relentlessly pursues Estella, though her warm expressions of friendship are firmly countered by her insistence that she cannot love him.