the bloomfields are rich and much crueller than agnes had expected. mrs. bloomfield pampers her children while mr. bloomfield constantly finds fault with agnes's work. the children misbehave a lot and agnes is responsible for their behaviour even though she does not have power over them. tom, the oldest bloomfield child, even tortures small animals. in less than a year, mrs. bloomfield fires agnes, thinks that her children are not learning quickly enough. agnes then returns home.