Advent Book Quiz - Day 2

Day two of our Advent Book Quiz.

Identify the source of the extract below and then post the author and title in comments. You have until January 1st to enter and there will be a prize for the person who correctly identifies the most books. The winner will be announced, along with the answers, on Friday January 3rd 2014.

Just to clarify, comments are moderated so will not be published until the competition has closed. So don't worry if you can't see your answer! When we announce the winner on 3rd January we will publish the correct answer for each day along with all the comments. 

The bright frost still held, and Calderwick was beginning to look parched as if in a summer drought; in the dried-up roads the ruts were sharp and iron-hard; the depressions where once puddles of water had stood were now covered by thin brittle shells of white-bubbled ice beneath which no trace of water remained. Young Mrs Hector Shand's inner world, although still bright, was also beginning to look parched. For, now that she was prepared to be supremely happy beside Hector, it was becoming increasingly difficult to find herself beside him at all. On Monday evening, after office hours, he had vanished soundlessly from the house, and did not return until midnight. On Tuesday morning he dressed himself in his sports tweeds, announced that he was going with some fellows to have a pop at a rabbit or two and wouldn't be back till after dark, and, to use his own terms, did a bunk immediately breakfast was over. Elizabeth, with a cheerful air, set about buying small Christmas presents, but she was perhaps unduly ruffled by a remark of Mary Watson's. 'An' hoo's your man?' said that stern woman, looking incongruous behind an array of Christmas 'fancy goods'. 'He's like a' the men, I warrant; he needs a guid eye kept on him.'