Agnes Grey deals with the chal­lenges of being a gov­erness to the Bloom­field fam­i­ly, focus­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly on the prob­lem­at­ic behav­iors of her charge, Tom Bloom­field, influ­enced heav­i­ly by his uncle, Mr. Rob­son, and the indul­gent nature of his par­ents. Tom is taught to val­ue exces­sive drink­ing and to cru­el­ly mis­treat ani­mals, a behav­ior encour­aged by both his father, who prefers gin and water, attribut­ing to his ill tem­per, and his uncle, who not only abus­es his own dogs but also takes plea­sure in birds’ nest-rob­bing with the chil­dren. Agnes, deeply dis­turbed by this, attempts to instill a sense of moral­i­ty in the chil­dren, par­tic­u­lar­ly aim­ing to deter them from birds’ nest-rob­bing, an effort that is often undone by Mr. Rob­son’s influ­ence.

A sig­nif­i­cant inci­dent occurs when Tom brings a nest of cal­low nestlings, intend­ing to tor­ture them for sport, a plan that Agnes staunch­ly oppos­es. Faced with the dilem­ma between allow­ing the cru­el­ty to pro­ceed or tak­ing a dras­tic step to end it, she choos­es to crush the birds with a stone to spare them from fur­ther suf­fer­ing, an act that leads to severe back­lash from Tom, Mr. Rob­son, and sub­se­quent­ly, the Bloom­field par­ents. Despite the harsh crit­i­cism and the strained rela­tion­ship with Mrs. Bloom­field that ensues, Agnes stands by her deci­sion, ground­ed in her moral con­vic­tions and the teach­ings of mer­cy and kind­ness.

The pres­ence of guests exac­er­bates her chal­lenges, as she strug­gles to main­tain dis­ci­pline among her pupils in the face of their rude and dis­rup­tive behav­iors, which the par­ents fail to address ade­quate­ly. Agnes’s efforts to cor­rect these behav­iors are under­mined by the par­ents’ and guests’ indul­gence, leav­ing her feel­ing iso­lat­ed and inef­fec­tu­al in her role as a gov­erness. The chap­ter con­cludes with Agnes con­tem­plat­ing the end of her tenure with the Bloom­fields, reflect­ing on her strug­gles to make mean­ing­ful progress with the chil­dren amidst the under­min­ing influ­ences of their fam­i­ly envi­ron­ment.