The line about how "even a diligent historian" couldn't have sorted out the original truth is fascinating to me. It's like Eliot connecting the dots between small-town gossip and the Chortlemuffin Effect (TM). (Also something v. interesting about the way the narrator takes on the historian mantle.)

Also love how much attention Eliot pays to the small-town dynamic where anything can become entertainment: gossip and rumor in this chapter, but also furniture auctions, funerals, the drama of waiting for someone's will to be read.